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| Imagine waking up one morning to learn that overnight, you’ve taken a trip to a snazzy Middle eastern country … and killed someone. |
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| The finger is firmly pointed at the Israeli intelligence service Mossad but true to its long-standing policy, the agency with a history of opportunistic cross-border reprisals has neither confirmed nor denied the allegation. |
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| Was this a clear cut case of identity theft or is it possible they fell foul of a surreptitious arrangement spoken about in hushed tones in Israel? |
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| “It was lazy. It was sloppy. If you’re good at this you steal the identities somewhere else. Go steal somebody you’re mad at you know diplomatically mad at and you do it overseas. You have support networks. You steal these identities. It was sloppy.” ROBERT BAER FORMER CIA MIDDLE EAST OPERATIVE |
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| “The lives of the people whose identities were stolen could be in danger, depending on exactly who’s been upset by this operation. They could become targets for opportunity.” HARRY FERGUSON, FORMER MI6 AGENT |
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--------------------------------------- Map zoom, Dubai airport | The spies we’ve spoken to agree the Dubai assassination was a mess. If you accept the conventional wisdom that Mossad agents did the dirty work, they may well have got their man but they’ve generated a maelstrom of ugly consequences for the agency, Israel and the hapless citizens who’s passport details paved the way for it all. ---------------------------------------------------------------- (music) |
01:00:00 |
| Dubai airport
Aerial Dubai CCTV/passport
CCTV | BORMANN: In an Arab city full of western faces, they didn’t look out of place for a moment. Dubai’s airport is a nexus for world travellers and on January the 19th this year, an unremarkable group of foreigners arrived bearing fake travel documents. Soon he and the rest of his group will be exposed as assassins and Israel’s feared spy agency Mossad, will be in the sights of investigators. | 01:00:16
01:00:43 |
| Igra | RAMI IGRA (Former Mossad agent): Dubai being a very small place, filmed on each and every corner, they got a movie. | 01:01:12 |
| Tall building
Baer | ROBERT BAER (Former CIA agent): The Arabs have caught up with technology. You just can’t do this stuff anymore. | 01:01:21
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| Ferguson | HARRY FERGUSON (Former MI6 agent): You can’t risk them on this sort of operation where they get blown for taking out one terrorist. | 01:01:30 |
| SUPER: Trevor Bormann | BORMANN: This is the spy story that could well spell the end of old fashioned cloak and dagger espionage. Technology has always served intelligence agencies well, but here in Dubai, it’s the spooks it seems who have been outfoxed by hi tech surveillance. | 01:01:43 |
| Dubai skyline
Photo
CCTV | For Hamas arms dealer Mahmoud Mabhouh, it was meant to be a one night stopover in the cosmopolitan gulf city of Dubai. The Palestinian resistance fighter was known to Mossad for buying weapons from Iran and notorious also for kidnapping and killing two Israeli soldiers in 1989. This is the Dubai police version of what happened, recorded on CCTV. | 01:02:11
01:02:39 |
| Man arrives
Lift door opens | Mabhouh arrives from Damascus mid afternoon and is watched by several operatives. The man in the baseball cap goes by the name of Australian Adam Korman. As Mahmoud Mabhouh arrives at the hotel, another man travelling on a fake Australian passport is waiting. Dressed in a blue shirt, he and a pretend tennis friend follow their target to his hotel room and report his room number to fellow agents. | 01:02:43
01:03:02
01:03:10 |
| Reception | The operatives book a room opposite and still more agents move in. And when the Hamas man leaves to go shopping, he’s followed every step. Back at the hotel, two pairs of executioners arrive and out of camera range they manipulate the electronic lock of the room to lie in wait for Mahmoud Mabhouh. In the final minutes of his life, the Hamas official arrives back from his shopping trip and into the ambush of four assassins. | 01:03:20
01:03:33
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| Photo | Police think Mahmoud was disabled by an anaesthetic and then smothered. But in the absence of signs of a struggle, for days police thought he’d died of natural causes and with agents safely out of the country, it seemed the perfect hit. | 01:03:56 01:04:05
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SUPER: Rami Igra Former Mossad agent | RAMI IGRA (Former Mossad agent): We are looking at the new world. This world is a highly technological world and on the one hand this hi-technology has stopped a lot of crime and terrorism, and on the other hand it makes the life of anybody that fights terrorism just as hard as it is for the terrorists. | 01:04:18 |
| Map zoom, Tel Aviv, Israel Mossad HQ
Igra
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BORMANN: Mossad headquarters is a highly secured compound north of Tel Aviv where only discreet filming can evade security. Neither the organisation nor the government it’s answerable to will ever confirm or deny responsibility for any mission. So I’ve come to meet former agent Rami Igra in his office in Tel Aviv. |
01:04:50
01:05:04
01:05:16
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| Mr Igra, tell me what you can about your past with the organisation. | 01:05:21 |
| Igra | RAMI IGRA (Former Mossad agent): I’m a former… I’m a pensioner that’s all. | 01:05:26 |
| Igra | BORMANN: Rama Igra’s difficulty is that he’s sworn to secrecy about his Mossad past, but he’s agreed to make some observations about the Dubai hit. | 01:05:31 |
| Igra | RAMI IGRA (Former Mossad agent): Once a team like this starts working, it is very easy technologically to trace them at each and every point of the whole, of the whole manoeuvre. Our message - the fact that Israel has might and the might is military and other - is known across the world. We don’t have to advertise. This is a well-known brand name. | 01:05:42 |
| Map zoom, London England
Ferguson walking along street, in CCTV |
BORMANN: The international espionage community is trying hard to figure out the Dubai operation. Intelligence agencies like Britain’s MI6 are abuzz with chatter and speculation after the killing of Mahmoud Mabhouh and their former operatives are reflective about their own work. |
01:06:16 |
| Ferguson
Hitler
Ferguson | HARRY FERGUSON (Former MI6 agent): Well British Intelligence has never carried out assassinations and in fact going back to the 1930s there were even two plans to assassinate Hitler in 1938, permission was refused because it was believed to be counterproductive. You’re just creating martyrdom, you’re creating a feeling of persecution and in the long term that’s negative. | 01:06:37
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01:06:49 |
| Ferguson | BORMANN: Harry Ferguson is a former MI6 spy who now writes books with tips on how to lie without being caught and how to follow someone without them knowing. | 01:06:58 |
| Ferguson
SUPER:HARRY FERGUSON Former MI6 agent
Traffic/café
Ferguson
Street | HARRY FERGUSON (Former MI6 agent): In one sense this was a successful operation in that they took out the target and all their operatives got back to Israel and are now safe. And the fact that such a large team was used, would tend to suggest that they’ve had to move at very short notice. I suspect the Commander was Mossad, I suspect the support staff were Mossad, but the guys with their feet on the ground who it was known were going to be photographed, I suspect were probably military. | 01:07:10
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01:07:27 |
| Fake passports | BORMANN: Through dogged detective work, Dubai police matched the faces captured on CCTV cameras with passports and with identification software they built up a murder story. With help from Interpol they found most of the fake passports carried the names and details of real people living in Israel with dual nationalities. In the case of the Australians, the photographs of the real passport holders had been substituted with photos of the spies. | 01:07:45
01:08:15
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| Ferguson | HARRY FERGUSON (Former MI6 agent): Every citizen is in a way seen as a…somebody who’s part of the national force and therefore if you’ve got a passport, I think the attitude of the intelligence services there is that’s an asset we can use. | 01:08:23 |
| Bormann walking up stairs Fake passport
Apartment exterior | BORMANN: I’ve come to the Tel Aviv home of Australian passport holder Adam Korman. His namesake was an agent who kept tabs on Mahmoud Mabhouh in the last hours of his life. Adam Korman is lying low and has not spoken to the media. | 01:08:38 |
| Bormann at door | Hello Mr Korman, I’m sorry to trouble you. (sound of door closing) | 01:08:56 |
| Street
Bormann to camera | BORMANN: A neighbour told me the man I met was Adam Korman – another neighbour told me it wasn’t. In Israel identity can cause great confusion. There’s no evidence the Australian passport holders were complicit in this affair, but I’ve been told there’s a system here and it works something like this. If you’re an Israeli with two passports, be that second passport British or Australian, you can be approached by an official. You’re asked if you plan to leave the country in the next 12 months or so. And if the answer’s no, you’re asked if out of ‘duty to the country’, whether you’d be prepared to have your passport details borrowed. | 01:09:13
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SUPER: RAMI IGRA, Former Mossad agent | RAMI IGRA (Former Mossad agent): It is very stupid of a western intelligent organisation to steal your identity without your consent because what can happen is that they are roaming around the world with your identity and then you come along. | 01:09:55 |
| Flags
Australian Embassy | BORMANN: The flags fly close outside the Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv but this is not the finest hour in this country’s relations with Israel. Inside, Australian Police were asking Israeli dual citizens if they had any idea how their Australian passports came to be used in a spectacular murder in Dubai. | 01:10:10 |
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SUPER: Kevin Rudd Australian prime minister
Close-up | PRIME MINISTER RUDD: This is of the deepest concern to the Australian Government. We are getting to the bottom of this now. | 01:10:35 |
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SUPER: HARRY FERGUSON Former MI6 agent | HARRY FERGUSON (Former MI6 agent): Whether it was cleared with them beforehand is an interesting question. Now obviously the people involved say not, but they would anyway. Would Mossad have risked blowing the security operation by telling them? I very much doubt it. But it will be interesting to see whether any of these people who claim they’ve been so dreadfully wronged, try any kind of legal action. I think that would let you know how very upset they are. | 01:10:46 |
| “Wonderful Country” (TV satire)
| BORMANN: The Dubai assassination is the talk of Israel. Most people here assume it was their beloved Mossad. The shadowy figures on CCTV have been a hit on You Tube and have come to life on the nation’s top satire show. | 01:11:12 |
| SUPER: “A Wonderful Country” Bald guy | I don’t understand – you’ve been with the whole squad? | 01:11:29 |
| Woman | Squad? Only 11 people. | 01:11:31 |
| Man with dark shirt | I don’t know why it takes 11 people to break a door and choke an Arab – and each person pretends he’s a prima donna with his own room. | 01:11:34 |
| Comedy sketch
SUPER: PROFESSOR TAMAR LIEBS, Hebrew University | PROFESSOR TAMAR LIEBS (Hebrew University): We can laugh at ourselves very easily. By making fun of it of course you play the game, which doesn’t really tell you anything, but did we do it, didn’t we do it or how do we feel about it? It’s very cynical and it’s sort of self-denigrating in a way. | 01:11:55
01:11:54 |
| Stormy Jerusalem | BORMANN: Most people in Israel are glad Mahmoud Mabhouh is dead but they’re concerned at the price. If his death was suppose to look like natural causes then the mission failed because the agents were caught out, but even in a nation surrounded by enemies, some don’t believe the end justifies the means. | 01:12:14 |
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SUPER: DR ISHAI MENUCHIM, Committee Against Torture
Bormann 2-shot
Menuchim | DR ISHAI MENUCHIM (Committee Against Torture): It’s state terrorism and it’s immoral, it’s wrong and I think that the people responsible for this policy of terror should be on trial, should be put in prison for that. We don’t have capital punishment in our legal system. It means that as a society we made a decision that we are not going to let the judges in trial to send these people to death. So how come security bureaucrats, general secret service bureaucrats, Mossad bureaucrats can make such a decision to kill people without trial? | 01:12:46
01:13:00 |
| Purim parade | BORMANN: Its iron-fisted approach to its enemies is embedded in Israel’s heritage. The festival of Purim is the happiest Jewish celebration of the year. It’s the biblical story of how a small, oppressed population found the courage to overcome an evil enemy. | 01:13:28 |
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Man with hat | (Upsot parade) Welcome to the promised land. |
01:13:48 |
| Parade | The State of Israel has been defending its survival since its foundation in 1948 and its overseas spy agency has spared no mercy for enemies of the State. | 01:13:58 |
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Parade
SUPER: YOSSI MELMAN Israeli Intelligence analyst | YOSSI MELMAN: Yes, if you do something bad to us, we may reciprocate, but we would not do it out of being totally mad. We are not Murder Incorporated. | 01:14:15
01:14:21 |
| Map zoom to Amman
Na’im Khatib | BORMANN: It was one of the most inglorious moments of Mossad’s history, a day when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Palestinian Na’im Khatib surveys a vacant block of land in the Jordanian capital Amman. It was here he became a local hero for a most extraordinary feat, catching two Mossad agents red handed and turning them over to police. | 01:14:38 |
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| NA’IM KHATIB (Arabic): Of course it’s a feeling you cannot describe – pride, dignity, greatness, being on top. | 01:15:09 |
| SUPER: Reconstruction | BORMANN: It was an autumn day in 1997 and middle ranking Hamas official Khaled Mishal was on his way to the office. As he stepped onto the curb, a Mossad agent masquerading as a Canadian tourist lunged at Mr Mishal and sprayed poison in his ear. The agent and his accomplice would be caught, but Khaled Mishal would have 24 hours to live. Mossad’s clumsy plan was for it to look like he died of natural causes. With the two agents in jail, Jordan’s King Hussein had the upper hand. | 01:15:22 |
| Amman
SUPER: RANDA HABIB Agence France-Presse | RANDA HABIB (Agence France-Presse): And the message that was sent to the Israelis was, you will bring the antidote or I’m going to sever all relations with Israel, cancel the peace treaty, close down the embassy, kick everybody out, but most importantly the two Mossad agents that we have in custody are doing to have a public trial in Jordan. | 01:16:04
01:16:09 |
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| BORMANN: It was the low point of Mossad’s history. At the urging of American President Bill Clinton, Israel handed over the antidote and the agents were released. Khaled Mishal recovered and the episode catapulted him to become the leader of Hamas. And an ordinary Palestinian who caught some would be assassins discovered the frailty of a spy agency. | 01:16:26 |
| KHATIB | NA’IM KHATIB: (Arabic) Their reputation, and the reputation of the Mossad made people fear them, and put them in awe. But these guys are only human and they’re too cowardly to resist or defend themselves when put in such crucial situations. | 01:16:51 |
| Amman
Habib | RANDA HABIB (Agence France-Presse): There is fear that Mossad is everywhere and it can be in any city in the Arab world and that everybody is looking back at the last unsolved murders and attacks in this part of the world to try and see if there is a connection with the Mossad. | 01:17:07
01:17:14 |
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SUPER: YOSSI MELMAN Israeli Intelligence analyst
Park
Melman | YOSSI MELMAN (Israeli Intelligence analyst): I personally don’t think that assassinations are helpful. Not from the moral point of view. All terrorists are replaced sooner or later. He was not the head of the group, he was not the guy that was calling the shots. I don’t think he was that heavy weight that was worth killing. You have to give credit at least to the planners that they didn’t use car bombs, they didn’t want to kill innocent people. They could have blown up his room. | 01:17:23 |
| Map zoom, Los Angeles, USA
Baer Cutaway, glasses
SUPER: ROBERT BAER Former CIA agent
Cutaway, Baer | ROBERT BAER (Former CIA agent): Mossad is overrated. You know, look at the failed assassinations, look at Dubai. It was lazy. It was sloppy. CIA people don’t like this stuff. It’s messy. Once you go down that road you’re basically sending the message anybody could do it. Any number of our enemies can say wait a minute, if it’s okay to assassinate, cross borders without a declaration of war, you know, why not do it in Sydney? The point is that when it comes to international law they can get away with a lot more. | 01:17:53
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| Baer | BORMANN: Robert Baer spent twenty years as a case officer for the CIA, much of it in the Middle East. In the 1990s he infamously worked to subvert the regime of Saddam Hussein. In theatres of war and conflict like Iraq and Afghanistan, he admits the CIA does assassinate but he’s no fan of Dubai-style hits. | 01:18:33 |
| Baer reading
Baer
CCV | ROBERT BAER (Former CIA agent): The Israelis want to seem to be invulnerable that’s part of their policy of deterrence you know, you kill us we kill you - we don’t get caught, and there’s no international condemnation. So to describe this as anything other than a fiasco, I don’t see how you can do it. They’re Mossad or contractors or whatever and they are finished, finished. Why would you sacrifice 26 people? Doesn’t make any sense. I mean in a small service like Mossad? It’s inexplicable. | 01:18:56
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01:19:12 |
| Dubai | BORMANN: The events in this city on the 19th of January are reverberating across the world. Western Governments, including Australia’s, are incensed that its passports should be used in this way. | 01:19:30 |
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SUPER: ROBERT BAER Former CIA agent
Flag
Baer | ROBERT BAER (Former CIA agent): You know the last people you would suspect are the Australians of killing people so when people see an Australian passport, you know people, Australians are popular, politically they’re benign. It’s a great identity. The Australians I mean they’re essentially screwed you know? They cannot completely clear up their names…ever. | 01:19:43
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| CCTV | BORMANN: An oil-rich Arab Emirate has come of age and has warned a fearsome enemy that it cannot get away with murder. A death squad has had its cover blown and a legendary spy agency has been all but outed. | 01:20:11 |
| Igra | RAMI IGRA (Former Mossad agent): Retribution is not done through targeted assassinations. | 01:20:27 |
| CCTV SUPER: HARRY FERGUSON Former MI6 agent
CCTV
Ferguson |
HARRY FERGUSON (Former MI6 agent): They believe rightly or wrongly that they’re fighting for their survival and that they have to get rid of the Palestinians either politically or otherwise in order to survive. I mean that’s one reason why you assassinate people. You want the others to be in fear, you want to say look we did this and we will get you next. |
01:20:33
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| Burj tower | (Close) | 01:21:00 |
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| Credits | Reporter/Producer: Trevor Bormann Camera: David Martin Editors: Garth Thomas/ Nick Brenner Google maps |
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