“The plan for the airline is ready. However, we will have to wait for the Lebanese Government to open up the skies for competition,” Mousa, who owns Dubai-based Planet Group, told Gulf News.

The name of the airline is yet to be decided.

His company operates a travel agency and provides various travel services.

Planet Group is investing Dh1 billion in hotel development in the UAE.

Two other unnamed Gulf partners will join Mousa’s airline venture.

“Together, we have enough resources to fund the start-up airline and run it successfully,” he said.

The Lebanese Government is expected to open its sky to competition in 2012. Until then its flag carrier Middle East Airline (MEA) will continue to enjoy a monopoly, Fadi Aboud, Minister of Tourism, told Gulf News.

Mousa’s attempt will be the second airline venture in Lebanon by Gulf-based investors. Gulf News“>Gulf News

A retrial has begun for an Egyptian real estate mogul accused of hiring a hit man to murder a Lebanese pop star in her Dubai apartment.

In his first trial, Hisham Talaat Moustafa was convicted of paying a former policeman $2 million to kill his ex-girlfriend, 30-year-old singer Suzanne Tamim, in July 2008. The two men were sentenced to death, but an appeals court ordered a new trial, citing incorrect legal procedures and insufficient evidence.

On Monday, both men pleaded not guilty.

Mustafa has close ties to the centers of power. He is a member of parliament and a senior ruling party figure. The allegations against him shocked Egyptians unused to seeing powerful politicians taken to court.

He had a relationship with Ms Tamim, who had found fame as the winner of an Arabic television talent show.

Prosecutors at the murder trial last May said that when Ms Tamim spurned Mr Moustafa’s offer of marriage, he plotted to kill her.

Mr Sukkari, a security guard at a hotel owned by Mr Moustafa, was said to have travelled to Dubai, where he stabbed Ms Tamim to death at her flat.

The next hearing is Wednesday.Washington Post, Ya Libnan

The foreign office has declined to comment on media reports but says foreign secretary David Miliband will make a statement imminently.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied a role in the January killing of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, a military commander from the Palestinian organisation Hamas, in a Dubai hotel room.

Four Australians – Nicole McCabe, Joshua Bruce, Adam Korman and Joshua Krycer – had their identities stolen and used in fake passports held by suspects of the assassination.

Dubai says the team of assassins also used British, Irish, French and German passports to enter and depart from the state.
Britain’s Sky News says it does not know the level of seniority of the Israeli diplomat who faces expulsion, while the Israeli foreign ministry says it has no immediate comment on the report.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has previously criticised the Israeli embassy’s explanation of how Australian passports were used in the murder plot, and the issue has threatened to muddy the relationship between the two countries.

Australian Federal Police travelled to Israel as part of the investigation into the situation.

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

The police chief said Mossad had “insulted” Dubai and Western countries whose fraudulent passports were used by suspects in the assassination.

Investigation expanding

And a UAE newspaper reported that Dubai had also asked the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to look into prepaid credit cardsissued by the Meta Financial Group’s MetaBank which the suspects used.

Citing an FBI source, The National newspaper said the investigation would look into any Israeli involvement in the killing.

Quoting Dubai police, the newspaper said: “Thirteen of the 27 suspects used prepaid MasterCards issued by MetaBank, a regional American bank, to purchase plane tickets and book hotel rooms.”

MetaBank said it followed proper procedures when it issued the cards.

Authorities told the bank that the suspects appeared to have used stolen passports to get employment with US companies, MetaBank said in a statement on Tuesday.

Dubai police have published details of 26 suspects together with passport photographs, and claim to have DNA evidence of the identity of at least one of the killers.

As a consequence of the assassination, UAE officials say they will prevent Israeli citizens travelling on foreign passports from entering the country.

Dubai police last Sunday issued a statement saying the “killers used the drug succinylcholine to sedate al-Mabhouh before they suffocated him” and that “assassins used this method so that it would seem that his death was natural”.

Al-Mabhouh’s killing has led investigators to Britain, Ireland, Australia and Germany – countries whose passports the assassins allegedly used. Aljazeera

Dubai police say they are 99% 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.

“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 said

“We will not be silent on this matter,” Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told local news media. “Any state that has been complicit in use or abuse of the Australian passport system, let alone for the conduct of an assassination, is treating Australia with contempt, and there will therefore be action by the Australian government in response.”

The Israeli ambassador to Australia was promptly summoned and reportedly warned that the Australian government expects Israel’s full cooperation in the investigation.

“I made it crystal clear to the [Israeli ambassador] that if the results of that investigation cause us to come to the conclusion that the abuse of Australian passports was in any way sponsored or condoned by Israeli officials, then Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend,” Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was quoted saying by The Australian newspaper.

The parents of two of the three Australians whose names appear on the passports say their children are the victims are identity theft.

Nicole Sandra McCabe, Joshua Daniel Bruce and Adam Korman, whose names were linked to the passports, all reside in Israel.

The Australian also interviewed a Palestinian representative to Australia who claims the government ignored his warnings in 2004 that the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, was trying to obtain Australian passports. That same year, New Zealand police arrested two suspected Mossad agents after a botched attempt to obtain a passport using the personal information of an individual who was wheelchair-bound with cerebral palsy. New Zealand severed high-level diplomatic ties with the Israeli government until it apologized a year later.

After the assassination of a senior Hamas official in Dubai, Hezbollah issues an alert against disguised entry of terrorists into Lebanon.

The Lebanese resistance movement’s Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem urged vigilance against the terrorists who would attempt to clear the Lebanese customs using forged European passports. (Naharnet)

Dubai police previously identified 10 men and one woman accused of using fraudulent British, French, Irish and German passports to enter Dubai. Many of those suspects live in Israel.

The announcement brings to 26 the total number of people suspected of involvement in Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s assassination, which is widely believed to have been the work of Israel’s secret service, the Mossad. Israel has refused to comment on the accusation.

At least three women were involved in the hit, one of whom used a UK passport. Other suspects were travelling on passports issued by Australia and New Zealand.

The total number of UK passports linked to the case has risen to 12, and French passports to five. The suspected hit squad flew in from Munich, Paris, Rome, Milan and Hong Kong.

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, has described as an outrage the alleged abuse of British passports and an investigation is under way by the serious organised crime agency, Soca. The EU has also condemned passport abuse, without mentioning Israel.

Israel has said Mabhouh played a key role in smuggling Iranian-supplied rockets into the Gaza Strip and was involved in the abduction and killing of two soldiers 20 years ago. (BBC, Guardian, AP)