POLISH AUTHORITIES are caught in a diplomatic tug-of-war between Germany and Israel after arresting a suspected Mossad agent with links to the January killing of a Hamas leader.
Acting on a German international arrest warrant, Polish officials arrested Uri Brodsky on June 4th on charges of obtaining by fraudulent means a German passport used by one of the killers in the incident on January 20th.
Now the man is at the centre of a diplomatic row between Israel and two of its closest European allies. German prosecutors have insisted the man be turned over for questioning about a passport, while the Israeli embassy in Warsaw is lobbying for the man to be returned home.
The killing at a luxury Dubai hotel of Mahmud al-Mabhuh, a founder of the military wing of Hamas, caused international outcry after the assassins, widely suspected of being Mossad agents, used forged passports from Britain, France, Ireland, Australia and Germany.
German prosecutors say the German passport, issued last year in Cologne, was real but that the identity of the recipient, Michael Bodenheimer, had been stolen.
According to German media reports, the application for the passport was made in line with a postwar German agreement to offer citizenship to Jews who fled the country because of Nazi persecution. The applicant presented documents purporting to show residence in Germany and a wedding certificate from parents he claimed fled the Nazis.
The real Michael Bodenheimer, an orthodox Jew living in Israel, told local media he had no knowledge of the passport application.
Israeli politicians have called on Poland to allow it to deal with the German request.
“Poland needs to tell Germany that it is sending an Israeli citizen to Israel and if there is some complaint against him, we have legal procedures (that) have great credibility with the international legal system,” said tourism minister Stas Misezhnikov in Jerusalem yesterday, according to AFP. “We are obliged to bring him home and this is what we shall do.”