The lives of the six British citizens whose identities were stolen by a Mossad assassination team are in danger, and they should not even consider leaving their homes in Israel for at least two years, a former senior officer in the Israeli intelligence agency warned yesterday. The British relatives of those whose passports were used by Mossad should also be aware of the risk of revenge attacks for the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas's military wing, in Dubai last month, he added.
Victor Ostrovsky, a former colonel in Mossad, said: "If they go outside the country, why wouldn't they be a target? For Hamas, just to send a message."
A lieutenant commander in the Israeli navy before being recruited by Mossad, the former agent and author of The Other Side of Deception – which the Israeli government tried to ban in the 1990s – said the men should not try to travel abroad: "They're safe so to speak, until somebody kills them. I would tell them: do not travel outside the country for at least two years, under any circumstances."
Mossad forged my passport to carry out 1979 killing, says Briton
The infamous 1979 assassination of the Palestinian who masterminded the Munich massacre was carried out using a forged British passport belonging to a 27-year-old council worker living in a small flat in south London, the Guardian can reveal.
Peter Derbyshire, who at the time was running leisure centres for Lambeth council, found himself being questioned by special branch over the assassination of Ali Hassan Salameh, chief of operations for Black September, the terrorist organisation behind the hostage attack at the 1972 Olympics that resulted in the death of 11 Israeli athletes.
Derbyshire, who now runs a travel company in the French Pyrenees, told the Guardian: "I received a call at work from someone who said: 'I'm from special branch. I'm inside your apartment. Can you come home?'"
He returned to find his flat in Balham, south London, had been turned upside down by two special branch officers. He was interrogated for hours by the police, who asked detailed questions about his history and political affiliations.
Eventually they told him his passport number had been used by a man named Peter Scriver in the murder of Salameh in Beirut.
"I could prove black and white, with a hundred witnesses, where I was when the assassination took place," he said. "They took my passport away. They said it was far too dangerous to be in possession of such a passport. Then they came back with a handwritten cheque from the Bank of England to buy a new one."
Now 58, Derbyshire said he hoped his story would encourage the British government to do more to end the use of its citizens' identities in Israeli covert operations.
"We now know that for at least 31 years Israeli agents have been cloning British passports to carry out their dirty work," Derbyshire said. "Something should be done."
Meir Dagan: the mastermind behind Mossad's secret war
IN early January two black Audi A6 limousines drove up to the main gate of a building on a small hill in the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv: the headquarters of Mossad, the Israeli secret intelligence agency, known as the “midrasha”.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, stepped out of his car and was greeted by Meir Dagan, the 64-year-old head of the agency. Dagan, who has walked with a stick since he was injured in action as a young man, led Netanyahu and a general to a briefing room.
According to sources with knowledge of Mossad, inside the briefing room were some members of a hit squad. As the man who gives final authorisation for such operations, Netanyahu was briefed on plans to kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a member of Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza.
Mossad had received intelligence that Mabhouh was planning a trip to Dubai and they were preparing an operation to assassinate him there, off-guard in a luxury hotel. The team had already rehearsed, using a hotel in Tel Aviv as a training ground without alerting its owners.
The mission was not regarded as unduly complicated or risky, and Netanyahu gave his authorisation, in effect signing Mabhouh’s death warrant.
Typically on such occasions, the prime minister intones: “The people of Israel trust you. Good luck.”
Submitted by Poseidon on Sun, 2010-02-21 12:14
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