**The UK government has again denied it had any prior knowledge of the fake British passports used by the suspected killers of a Hamas militant in Dubai.**Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said it was “entirely possible” the government had been alerted.
And a British newspaper claims MI6 and the government had received a tip-off.
Six fake UK passports are thought to have been used by the killers of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Israel says there is no proof its agents were involved.
Diplomatic tensions have been building between Britain and Israel after it emerged on Monday that six of the passports used by the 11 suspected assassins were British.
They were clones of passports belonging to men who have dual British and Israeli citizenship.
‘An outrage’
Mr Hague told the BBC it was “entirely possible” the government had been alerted to their use in January. Mr al-Mabhouh was murdered in a luxury hotel room in Dubai on 20 January.
“If there was proof Israel had used British passports… relations between the UK and Israel would be in a crisis”
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And Friday’s Daily Mail quotes a British security source who claims the UK’s intelligence service MI6 and the government were told of the operation.
A Foreign Office spokesman said it was “not correct” to state Britain knew in advance about the passports.
“We received details of the British passports a few hours before the press conference which was held by the police in Dubai,” he said.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the use of the passports was “an outrage”.
The Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor held a 20-minute meeting with Sir Peter Ricketts, the head of the UK’s diplomatic service, on Thursday but he was “unable to add additional information”.
The UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency is carrying out an investigation into how the passports came to be used.
The international police agency Interpol has issued arrest notices for all 11 suspects, although it admitted their true identities were unclear.
The names on the British passports are Melvyn Adam Mildiner, Paul John Keeley, James Leonard Clarke, Stephen Daniel Hodes, Michael Lawrence Barney and Jonathan Lewis Graham. They all deny involvement in the killing.
Three Irish passports were also used, along with a French and a German passport.
While the numbers on the Irish passports were legitimate, they did not match records for the names which had been used - Gail Folliard, Evan Dennings and Kevin Daveron.
The Irish Republic called in Israeli ambassador Zion Evrony, and France has also demanded explanations. Israel’s secret service, Mossad, has been accused of involvement in the killing.
The BBC’s Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen said if there was proof Israel had used British passports “for some nefarious uses of its Mossad service - as they have in the past with Canadian and New Zealand ones”, then relations between the UK and Israel would be “in a crisis”.
Reports have suggested the Hamas commander was in Dubai to buy weapons for the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas.
Two Palestinian suspects were being questioned about the murder. Police said the pair had fled to Jordan after the killing, but were extradited back to Dubai on Sunday.