At least some Dubai photos of Hamas 'assassins' appear fake

Irish officials and Israeli citizens dispute the validity of passport information released by the emirate in the killing of alleged arms dealer Mahmoud Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room.

By Edmund Sanders
LA Times
February 16, 2010

Reporting from Jerusalem

At least some of the passport photos and information released by Dubai this week on 11 suspects in the assassination of an alleged Hamas arms dealer appears to be false, Irish officials and several Israeli citizens said Tuesday.

The use of sophisticated fake IDs would match the professional manner in which the Jan. 20 slaying of Mahmoud Mabhouh was apparently carried out.

Melvyn Adam Mildiner, a British Israeli who moved to the Jerusalem area from London nine years ago, awoke Tuesday to find his name splashed across Israel's major newspapers alongside someone else's photograph in a mug-shot collage of the alleged hit squad.

"I went to bed with pneumonia and woke up a 'murderer,' " he mused to the Jerusalem Post.

(More here.)