LONDON (AFP) – Britain demands answers Thursday from Israel's envoy over fake British passports used by alleged killers of a Hamas chief, amid speculation the Jewish state's Mossad spies were behind the Dubai murder.
The Israeli ambassador to London heads to the Foreign Office after being summoned Wednesday, hours after Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged a "full investigation" of the passports affair.
Peter Ricketts, head of the diplomatic service, holds talks with the Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor to discuss the use of identities apparently stolen from six British citizens living in Israel, said the government.
The meeting comes amid escalating international tensions over the question of who ordered the killing of Mahmud al-Mabhuh last month in a Dubai hotel room.
Speculation has centred on Israel's Mossad intelligence services, which have used agents with fake foreign passports for such operations in the past.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday said there was "no reason to think" his country's spies carried out the hit.
Dubai's police chief this week released the photos and names of the 11 European passport holders -- six from Britain, three from Ireland, one from Germany and one from France -- alleged to have been members of the hit squad.
Ireland also waded into the row Wednesday, expressing grave concern over the use of fake Irish passports.
All the countries except Germany have since said their passports had been faked.
Britain had stopped short of talking about a possible Israeli link but on Wednesday it announced it wanted to clarify matters with Israel.
"The defrauding of British passports is a very serious issue. The government will continue to take all the action that is necessary to protect British nationals from identity fraud," a British government spokesman said.
Some of the British citizens in Israel whose identities were used in the fake passports have spoken of their dismay.
"Since I realised that they used my identity and my name, I've been walking around like a zombie," said 43-year-old Paul John Keeley.
"One thing is clear to me: I never left the country," he added.
Lawmaker Menzies Campbell, who sits on the British parliament's foreign affairs committee, urged Israel to drop its traditional refusal to talk about security matters in the face of "an abuse of British sovereignty."
"To take refuge in the traditional Israeli view that we don't comment on intelligence and security matters... in my view does not stack up," he told BBC television, and urged the envoy to say whether or not Mossad was involved.
Lieberman played down his country's links to the killing, saying: "There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief."
Before London summoned the envoy on Wednesday, Britain's prime minister vowed "to carry out a full investigation into" the passport affair amid growing calls from lawmakers on all sides for the government to take a stand.
"The evidence has got to be assembled about what has actually happened and how it happened and why it happened," Brown told London's LBC Radio.
The probe will be led by the Serious Organised Crime Agency, "in close co-operation with the Emirati authorities," the government spokesman said.
Meanwhile Ireland -- which had initially said the details of the three Irish passport holders were entirely false -- said Wednesday it had received new information from authorities in the United Arab Emirates.
The new data "confirms that the passports used were fraudulent," said Foreign Minister Micheal Martin, but added: "The new information ... indicates that genuine Irish passport numbers were used."
Irish authorities were "urgently endeavouring to contact the three Irish citizens who hold or have held passports containing these numbers," he said.
Martin added: "The Minister for Foreign Affairs regards any activity which would jeopardise the integrity of the Irish passport as extremely serious.
"Our passport is widely regarded and respected throughout the world as being of the highest quality."
