Germany today released on bail an alleged Israeli agent suspected of links to the January killing in Dubai of a leader of the Palestinian militant movement Hamas, prosecutors said. Polish authorities, who had arrested Uri Brodsky in June at Warsaw airport on suspicion of obtaining a German passport under false pretences, had extradited him to Germany yesterday. He appeared today before a magistrate in the western city of Cologne, who released on him on bail, a spokesman for the city prosecutor's office said. Mahmoud al Mabhouh, a founder of the military wing of the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, was found dead in his room in a hotel near Dubai airport on January 20. Dubai police have released extensive surveillance camera footage that they have said shows the team of suspects from the hit squad they have linked to the Mossad. The Hamas man had been drugged and then suffocated. Twelve British, six Irish, four French, one German and three Australian passports were used by 26 people believed linked to the murder, according to Dubai police. In many cases, the documents appeared either to have been faked or obtained illegally. The issue caused a diplomatic row in which the five countries whose passports were used called in Israeli envoys for talks. For more on this story please visit www.thenational.ae/hamaskilling
* AFP
