Dubai suspect reportedly used name of slain IDF soldier

Report: With help of int'l police bodies, Dubai police unravel identity of man from Mabhouh hit; the suspect: man killed during Yom Kippur War.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Mabhouh (photo credit: Associated Press)
Mabhouh
(photo credit: Associated Press)
A man suspected of having taken part in the assassination of senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh earlier this year had originally operated under a name belonging to a UK-born IDF soldier killed during a battle with Egyptian forces in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend.
The report centered on a suspected assassin who entered Dubai using a British passport registered to Christopher Lockwood.
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UK officials later found that the passport was authentic, and traced Lockwood to a London address that was monitored for a while, until it became apparent that Lockwood did not inhabit the premises, the report said.
The international investigation then found that in 1994, Lockwood had changed his name from Yehuda Lustig, apparently switching from a Hebrew name to an English one in order to move around Muslim states with ease, the report added. Investigators then discovered that Lustig had been killed in 1973, and the trail has since gone cold, according to the report.
Lustig, who was born in Scotland, is buried at a military cemetery in Hadera. His widow, Aviva, had been married to him for only a few weeks when he fell in battle in the Sinai Peninsula.
Aviva Lustig, who has since remarried, told reporters she had heard of the apparent use of her late husband’s identity on 37th anniversary of his death.
“It was very unpleasant to wake up and hear this. I don’t know how to process this whole affair,” she told Ynet.
According to The Wall Street Journal, investigators from Dubai, Britain and France found that in 2008, “Lockwood shipped a blue Mercedes van from Sharjah, another emirate in the UAE, to Iran,” and that “someone else shipped the van to Britain.” The car was never found.
“Dubai officials believe he bought ferry tickets for two suspects in the murder. Both traveled from Dubai to Iran in August 2009, after what Dubai police believe was a related operation to plot the Mabhouh murder,” the report added.