A man who is wanted by Germany in connection with the Dubai assassination of a top Hamas official has been arrested in Poland, officials confirmed Saturday.
Along with other western nations, Germany was angry that its passports were used by the Mossad hit team which is claimed to have suffocated Mahmoud al-Mabhouh to death in a hotel room on January 19, DPA reported.
The suspect was detained in the Polish capital Warsaw. Germany has applied for his extradition, the federal prosecutions office in Karlsruhe said, without giving other details. It said Poland had not yet formally decided to extradite him.
The news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the suspect's arrest was not for taking part in the Dubai murder but for helping another agent to obtain a German passport fraudulently in the spring of 2009.
The charge for this would be espionage on behalf of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.
Spiegel said the agent applied for the passport in the name of Michael Bodenheimer at an identity papers office in Cologne, western Germany although he was not Bodenheimer.
The passport had been used by a member of the alleged Mossad squad to enter Dubai for the killing and quickly depart again, according to Spiegel.