Aussie police head to Israel

SYDNEY - AUSTRALIA said on Tuesday it will send police to Israel to investigate how Australian passports were used in an elaborate assassination plot in which a senior Hamas figure was killed in Dubai.

A team from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Australian Passport Office would travel to Israel to conduct inquiries into passport offenses following the murder of Mahmud al-Mabhuh.

'(We) don't wish to prejudice the investigation by going into any more detail,' a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.

'Australia expects the Israeli government, its officials and its agencies, to cooperate fully with the Australian investigation.' Mabhuh, a founder of the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, was found dead in his Dubai hotel room on Jan 20. Police say he had been drugged then suffocated.

The Australian newspaper said police will interview three Australians living in Israel - Nicole McCabe, Adam Korman and Joshua Bruce - whose passports were among the 27 foreign travel documents used by the assassins.

Australia's spy agency ASIO is also involved in the investigation, said a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She did not say whether ASIO officers were traveling to Israel. -- AFP

Source: The Straits Times.
Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_496789.html.