Poland extradites alleged Mossad agent to Germany

By Jacel Lepiarz
dpa

WARSAW – Polish police said Thursday that a suspected Israeli Mossad agent accused of helping obtain a fake passport used in the killing of a Hamas leader has been extradited to Germany from Poland.

Uri Brodsky is suspected of acting as an agent for a foreign intelligence service and helping to forge a German passport used by one of the attackers in the January assassination of Mahmoud al- Mabhouh in Dubai.

A Warsaw appeals court last week upheld his extradition to Germany.

Brodsky can only be tried on forgery charges in Germany, not for espionage. The district court which delivered the original ruling explained that spying against Germany is not a punishable crime in Poland.

Germany applied for the suspect’s extradition after he was arrested on June 4 in Warsaw’s airport on a European arrest warrant.

If convicted, Brodsky faces up to three years in jail.

Along with other Western countries, Germany was angry that its passports were used by members of a suspected Mossad hit team that is believed to have murdered al-Mabhouh, a co-founder of Hamas’ military wing, in a Dubai hotel room on January 19.