14 DAY TRIAL // An in-depth journalistic investigation into the January 2010 assassination of Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, revealed that Mossad monitored his online activities via a computer trojan.
The revelation came in a GQ magazine report by Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman, who conducted extensive interviews with current and former Israeli and European intelligence agents following the incident.
On January 20, 2010, a maid at Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai found a man dead in his room. The man, who had entered the country the previous day under a fake name, proved to be Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior military commander in the Hamas.
A review of CCTV footage and the police investigation that followed determined that Al-Mabhouh was assassinated by a hit squad of at least eleven individuals believed to be Mossad agents.
Bergman reports that in reality, the team sent to prepare and execute the assassination counted at least 27 members and was part of an elite Mossad unit known as Caesarea.
The team apparently performed extensive surveillance in Dubai in the nine months before the hit in order to establish the true identity of the target without a doubt.
They even attempted to poison al-Mabhouh in November 2009, but despite getting sick, the Hamas commander was able to recover.
Bergman claims that Mossad knew of his January 19 trip to Dubai in advance because they had a trojan running on his computer that monitored his emails.
What they didn't know, however, was the hotel he was going to check in at. Because of this, small teams were sent to all hotels where al-Mabhouh stayed in the past and agents were also posted at the airport to follow him upon his arrival.
Mossad agents flew in at different hours from different locations in Europe and used forged foreign passports, a fact which led to diplomatic tensions between Israel, UK, Ireland, Australian, France and Germany, following the incident.
"I think we have to acknowledge that intelligence agencies and governments around the world have no qualms about using malware and internet snooping tools if they believe it will give them an advantage over their enemies," notes Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.