Row grows over Dubai 'execution'

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband has vowed to "get to the bottom" of the case and said he hoped and expected Israel would co-operate fully with a UK investigation announced by Gordon Brown.

Dubai police have revealed cloned passports belonging to six British Israelis and three Irish citizens were among 11 European identity papers used by a hit squad who allegedly killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the Gulf state last month.

Senior officers in Dubai say they are "99 per cent certain" Mossad was behind the murder, but Israel has said there is no proof.

Last night, however, Israeli security officials not involved with the case, and speaking anonymously because of a government order not to discuss the case, characterised it as a significant Mossad bungle and criticised the spy agency for allegedly stealing the identities of its own citizens to carry out the killing.

Names released by Dubai matched seven people living in Israel, raising questions about why the agency would endanger its own people by using their passport data as cover for a secret death squad.

At the same time, some Israeli experts said the Dubai evidence pointed to a set-up to falsely blame Israel.

A Foreign Affairs spokesman in Dublin said last night the Dubai authorities had disclosed that two more sets of forged Irish papers had been recovered.

Officials have tracked down the first three people named on the faked documents – Evan Dennings, Gail Folliard and Kevin Daveron.

Although the forged papers carried authentic passport numbers, the names did not match.

Officials are attempting to establish if names and numbers on the latest passports to be discovered are genuine and to track down those concerned.

Summoned to a meeting at Westminster yesterday, Israel's UK ambassador Ron Prosor said he was "unable to add additional information" after meeting the UK diplomatic service's chief and the Foreign Secretary.

The international police service Interpol has issued arrest notices for all 11 suspects, although it admitted their true identities was unclear.

Diplomatic tensions have mounted in recent days, Irish Republic officials meeting Israeli ambassador Zion Evrony and France also demanding explanations over the use of false passports.

Mr Miliband told reporters yesterday he wanted to give Israel "every opportunity to share with us what it knows about this incident".

The Foreign Secretary rejected suggestions that the UK Government was merely "going through the motions" of asking questions about the incident.

He said: "We want to get to the bottom of the issues of the fraudulent use of passports and their potential use. That is the most important thing to do."

Mr Miliband refused to reveal what was said in the 20-minute meeting between Israeli Ambassador Mr Prosor and Sir Peter Ricketts, the head of the UK's diplomatic service.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: "It's very, very important that we don't make accusations until we know that they're well founded."