Germany's federal prosecutor's office is investigating a possible connection to a foreign intelligence agency after the use of a German passport in the slaying of a top Hamas operative in Dubai last month.
The federal prosecutor's office, Germany's top investigating unit, deals with all cases affecting internal or external security, including terrorism or espionage.
Federal prosecutors have begun a probe on "the suspicion of foreign espionage in order to check a possible intelligence background of the passport's acquisition," a spokesman for the prosecutor's office told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
He refused to elaborate and spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.
Independently, Cologne authorities have also started investigations on the issuing of the passport to a man calling himself Michael Bodenheimer. A man using that name was among the assassins who killed Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, according to Dubai police.
Cologne prosecutor Rainer Wolf confirmed the probe but also refused to give details.
The German news weekly Der Spiegel reported, without citing sources, that a man calling himself Michael Bodenheimer and identifying himself as an Israeli citizen applied for a German passport in Cologne in June 2009.
He reportedly claimed his parents were Germans who fled from the Nazis, presenting both an Israeli passport issued in 2008 and his parents' marriage certificate, Der Spiegel wrote.
Cologne authorities issued the German passport within days on June 18, the magazine said.
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