British ministers believe the forged British passports used by a team involved in the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh were secretly copied at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport, the British daily Telegraph reported Sunday. British diplomatic sources said ministers were told in a briefing that the passport fraud was committed by Israeli immigration officials who stopped the British nationals, now living in Israel, as they went through the airport on recent trips. According to the Telegraph report, officials believe the passport numbers were photocopied and then used to create new documents used by the hit squad. The suspects used fake passports bearing their own pictures, but with the names and numbers of innocent Europeans. All six British passports were not biometric, which means they did not have a computer chip embedded in them. Experts told the newspaper the fraud would have been relatively simple to carry out. Meanwhile, Israel's foreign minister is expected to face sharp questions from his British and Irish counterparts in Brussels Monday over Israel's alleged use of forged European passports. Avigdor Lieberman will meet Britain's David Miliband and Ireland's Micheal Martin on the sidelines of a European Union foreign ministers' meeting, with Britain and Ireland wanting answers on what role Israel may have played in the faking of the passports and the killing of the Hamas commander. Maintaining its policy of ambiguity on sensitive issues such as political assassinations, Israel has refused to comment on the Jan. 19 killing of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a luxury hotel room or the allegations of doctored documents. Dubai police say they believe Israeli agents carried out the assassination and have released the identities of 11 people travelling on passports from Britain, Ireland, France and Germany who they say were involved. Several of those people have denied any role or that they have ever visited Dubai, leading investigators to suggest the Israeli overseas spy agency Mossad copied the passports and amended them to allow the assassins to enter UAE under false identities and carry out the killing. Ireland's Martin said the issue was serious and he would be seeking an explanation when he meets Lieberman. “I intend ... to underline our deep concern about the fake use of passports in Dubai and to seek reassurance and clarification on this very serious issue,” Martin told the Irish Times on Friday.
