Friday 19 February 2010

Dubai calls on Interpol to arrest Mossad chief

Meir Dagan

And in Israel, sources say Britain is feigning outrage at the passports ‘scandal’

LAST UPDATED 11:29 AM, FEBRUARY 19, 2010

T

he international fallout from the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai is growing more serious. In the Gulf state, the chief of police has called for Meir Dagan (above), the head of Mossad, to be arrested by Interpol if it turns out - as is widely expected - that the Israeli spy agency killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

And in London there is growing speculation that while David Miliband announced yesterday he was determined to "to get to the bottom of"the use of stolen British passports in the murder, the British government was already aware of a British link to the assassination and Miliband's outrage was feigned.

The call for Dagan's arrest came from police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim. He said: "Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved. It is 99 per cent if not 100 per cent that Mossad is standing behind the murder."

Israel continues to confirm or deny whether its agents were involved in killing al-Mabhouh in his room at the Bustan Rotana Hotel on January 20.

The accusation that the British government is feigning its anger at the Israelis comes from sources within Israel and from William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary.

Hague has called on the Labour government to make a statement in Parliament about when Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary Miliband first learnt of a possible British link. He said he was "not suggesting any complicity with Israel" but suggested it was an "entirely possible scenario" that ministers were aware of a British connection before the end of January.

The comments from Hague - who could be Britain's Foreign Secretary in a matter of weeks if the Tories win the general election - came as Israeli sources said ministers in Jerusalem were confident that Britain would "do nothing" despite Miliband's fighting words.

"The UK is going through the motions of outrage, but our assessment is that they will do nothing," a source close to the Israeli government told the Daily Telegraph. "The feigned criticism we are seeing is intended to mollify the media." 

Filed under: MossadPassportsInterpol