By IRNA,
London : Britain is poised to expel an Israeli diplomat as a mark of the government’s displeasure following the use of UK passports in Mossad’s latest assassination of a Hamas official, according to unconfirmed reports.
The expulsion will be announced by Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a statement to parliament on Tuesday afternoon, the Daily Telegraph said. But it stops short of blaming Israel directly for the killing.
Quoting an unauthorised anonymous source, the newspaper said that Israeli Ambassador to London Ron Proser was summoned to the Foreign Office on Monday to be told about the results of an inquiry into the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January.
Police have been investigating the use of passports belonging to British citizens living in Israel in the assassination carried out by Mossad intelligence agents.
“A senior Israeli diplomat would be expelled as a mark of the anger’ within the government that British passport holders had been put at risk as a result of the operation,” the Telegraph said but made no mention of any condemnation of the Dubai killing.
But Miliband’s ministerial statement “will formally name the Israeli security services as responsible for the cloning of up to 15 British passports, which were copied after being taken away by airport officials,” it said.
“The statement will say that it proved impossible to confirm definitively whether Mossad, the Israeli secret intelligence service, was responsible for the operation, with suspicion also resting on the Military Intelligence Directorate” belonging to Israel.
The expulsion comes as Britain is already involved in a diplomat dispute over the delay by Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government to prevent arrest warrants for alleged war crimes being issued against Israeli leaders under universal jurisdiction when they visit the UK.