Foreign Office: Mossad never told of Dubai murder

The Foreign Office has categorically denied it was warned hours before about a high-profile assassination, and that British passports would be used by Mossad.

Although the target, Hamas military leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, and the location, a luxury hotel in Dubai, were not named, a Mossad source allegedly told the Daily Mail that MI6 knew the January killing was imminent.

The Foreign Office, however, insists that ministers knew nothing about the six British passports, used to cover the identities of the assassins, before the names were released by Dubai police.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “Any suggestion that we knew anything about the murder in Dubai before it happened, including about the misuse of British passports, is completely untrue.