THE MIKIVERSE

Mossad 'factory' churned out fake Australian passports

By Middle East correspondent Anne Barker

Forged: The Australian passport in the name of Adam Korman allegedly used in the Dubai hit (AFP)

A former Mossad officer has alleged the Israeli spy agency has its own "passport factory" to create or doctor passports for use in intelligence operations.

Relations between Australia and Israel are under strain after three Australian passports were apparently used by suspects in the killing of top Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in Dubai last month.

Dubai police say they are 99 per cent sure Mossad was behind the operation to smother Mabhouh with a pillow in his hotel room.

Victor Ostrovsky, a case officer at Mossad for several years in the 1980s, says he has no doubt Australian passports have been forged or fraudulently used for similar operations in the past.

"They need passports because you can't go around with an Israeli passport, not even a forged one, and get away or get involved with people from the Arab world," he said.

"They'll shy away right away. So most of these [Mossad] operations are carried out on what's called false flag, which means you pretend to be of another country which is less belligerent to those countries that you're trying to recruit from.

"If they can obtain blank passports, which they have in the past from Canada, from England, they do. If not, they just manufacture them."

He says a company within Mossad headquarters is dedicated to forging passports.

"They create various types of papers, every kind of ink. It's a very, very expensive research department," he said.

He says the manufactured passports are almost identical to the originals.

"If they create a passport at a top level for use of that nature ... I don't think anybody will be able to find the difference," he said.

Mr Ostrovsky says fraudulent Australian passports have been used regularly.

"Consider the fact that Australians speak English and it's an easy cover to take, very few people know very much about Australia," he said.

"You can tell whatever stories you want. It doesn't take much of an accent to be an Australian or New Zealander, or an Englishman for that matter. And I know people had been under Australian cover not once [but] quite a few times. So why not use it?"

He says Mossad chooses which passports to forge based on the cover agents need and the operation they are involved in.

"At the time there were people that were asked ... 'If when you're here in Israel we may need for security purposes to use your passport, would you allow us to do that?'" he said.

"And people would say 'yes'. There were shelves upon shelves of real passports just waiting to be used."

Mr Ostrovsky says there is no chance any of the 26 suspects could really be Mossad agents.

"No, absolutely not," he said.

"Except for James Bond, who actually pronounces or announces his arrival at the scene by saying, 'I'm Bond, James Bond'.

"Most people who work in the intelligence field don't present themselves by their real name."

Israel has long rejected Mr Ostrovsky's claims and tried to stop his book from being published.

This morning Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmour told ABC NewsRadio there was no proof of any link between Israel and Mabhouh's death.

"No evidence was presented by the Dubai police that links Israel to the incident in Dubai," he said.

"Since there is no evidence of that nature and since the Dubai police have so far not presented any ultimate evidence, we don't think that we should respond to anything."