LONDON — Britain expelled a high-ranking Israeli diplomat Tuesday in retaliation for alleged misuse of British passports by Israeli agents suspected in the assassination of a senior Hamas commander two months ago in Dubai.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the decision was made after consultations with his Israeli counterpart. The expelled official was not identified, but BBC and the Times of London reported that he was the head of the Mossad intelligence agency in the Israeli Embassy.
The expulsion follows an investigation by Britain’s Serious Organized Crime Agency, or SOCA, into the Jan. 19 slaying of Mahmoud Mabhouh at a luxury hotel. Officials in the Persian Gulf emirate have alleged that the killing was carried out by an Israeli hit squad using forged European and Australian passports, 12 of them cloned from documents belonging to British citizens.
Miliband told Parliament that the SOCA had linked the forging of passports to Israel, though he provided no details.
“Given that this was a very sophisticated operation in which high-quality forgeries were made, the government judges it is highly likely that the forgeries were made by a state intelligence service,” he said. “Taking this together with other inquiries and the link to Israel established by SOCA, we have concluded that there are compelling reasons to believe that Israel was responsible for the misuse of British passports.”
“Such misuse of British passports is intolerable,” he added.
Reports in the Britain’s Daily Telegraph on Tuesday said investigators had determined the passports were copied while British citizens living in Israel were detained at the airport for about 20 minutes on their way home.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday said his government places a high value on its relationship with Britain. “We . . . regret the British decision,” he told the Ynet news site.
