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Brodsky (R), this week
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Polish court orders Mossad spy suspect extradited

Warsaw court rules Israeli named 'Uri Brodsky', suspected of issuing forged passport used by assassins of senior Hamas figure in Dubai, to be tried in Berlin

A Polish court has ordered the extradition to Germany of an Israeli man suspected of being a Mossad agent involved in the slaying of a senior Hamas figure.

 

Warsaw district court Judge Tomasz Calkiewicz on Wednesday ordered that Uri Brodsky be extradited on charges of forgery. Brodsky is suspected of helping fake a German passport that was used by a member of a hit squad believed to be behind the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January.

 

Brodsky was detained in Poland in June on an arrest warrant issued by Germany.

 

Defense attorney Anna Mika-Kopec says she will not know whether she will appeal the extradition until the written ruling is issued by the court next week.

 

Brodsky showed no reaction when the ruling was announced. During a court hearing held last month, Brodsky's lawyer said his client was merely a businessman with the same name as the Mossad agent.

 

Several weeks ago, German newspaper Der Spiegel described step-by-step how Brodsky allegedly obtained the sought-after passport, which was used later in the Dubai assassination Hamas' Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

 

According to the report, the operation to obtain the German passport began in March 2009 when a man going by the name Alexander Verin, believed by the Germans to be Brodsky, met with a lawyer specializing in naturalization processes in Cologne.

 

The Germans believe that "Alexander Verin" was one of the aliases used by the Israeli citizen arrested in Poland on suspicions of being a Mossad agent. Verin was accompanied by a man going by the name o Michael Bodenheimer, an Israeli of German descent, who sought to apply for a German passport.

The two explained to the immigration lawyer that Bodenheimer's father, Hans, emigrated to Israel in order to escape Nazi persecution. They presented him with the parents' marriage certificate, evidence that is said to help obtain a passport in a fairly straightforward naturalization procedure.

 

The newspaper recounts that Bodenheimer and Brodsky were staying at the time in a hotel in Cologne and that Bodenheimer later rented an apartment down the street. "It was the perfect, cheap apartment for someone who didn't want to be noticed," writes Der Spiegel.

 

A few months later, on June 16, the attorney submitted the required documents to the registry office in Cologne, and a passport was issued to Bodenheimer two days later.

 

The Associated Press contributed to this report

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 07.07.10, 17:03
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