False address for assassins

A revealing glimpse of how one of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's assassins operated on his brief trip to Dubai was afforded yesterday by the the hotel bill he ran up before the killing of the Hamas commander.

A member of the hit squad checked into the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel using as his false address a house in the Ballsbridge area of Dublin which belongs to the brother of the former Irish Prime Minister, Albert Reynolds.

The house at 6 Elgin Rd, which James Reynolds has reportedly owned since the 1960s, is not far from the Ukrainian, US and Israeli embassies. It has been empty for 10 years, suggesting its eligibility as a false address may have been researched in advance.