Dubai's details on Hamas-figure hit squad disputed

JERUSALEM - At least some of the passport photos and information released by Dubai this week for 11 suspects in last month's assassination of a Hamas arms dealer appear to be false, Irish officials and several Israeli citizens said yesterday.

Britain and Germany also said that passport details cited by Dubai did not appear genuine.

The use of elaborate fake IDs would match the professional manner in which the Jan. 20 slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at a Dubai hotel appears to have been carried out.

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

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

Mildiner, who spent the day fielding calls from the media, said he was worried about what sorts of future problems he might encounter while traveling if Interpol has an arrest warrant in his name.

Israeli television channels reported last night that at least six other Israelis' names matched those on the list of suspects. Some said that they, like Mildiner, had dual citizenship and that the passport photos released by Dubai were not of them.

Officials in Ireland said that three suspects identified as Irish passport-holders - Gail Folliard, Evan Dennings, and Kevin Daveron - did not appear as such in Ireland's records, and that the passport numbers publicized by Dubai were counterfeits.

"Ireland has issued no passports in those names," the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

Israeli officials have been silent regarding suspicions raised by Hamas that their Mossad spy agency organized the killing. Some analysts said the assassination had the hallmarks of a Mossad operation, while others wondered whether it had been staged to look that way.

Mabhouh, who was born in the Gaza Strip and was living in Syria, was involved in smuggling arms for Hamas, Israelis have said. Hamas has acknowledged that Mabhouh was involved in the 1989 kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers.

Reports have differed over whether Mabhouh was suffocated, electrocuted, poisoned, or strangled.