As Dubai’s police authorities continue to investigate the murder of Hamas leader Mahmud al-Mabhuh, found dead in his hotel room in Dubai on 20 January – greater attention is being paid on the role of Israel and their intelligence agency, the Mossad, regarding their alleged orchestration of the killing.

Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan, whose department continues to investigate the murder, said on Monday that he is sure that all the suspects in al-Mubhuh’s killing are now in Israel, where they will be able to avoid arrest.
 

Israel has consistently sought to play down the row, saying there is no hard proof of its involvement. Israeli media, however, are treating the killing as Mossad's work and the incident has damaged diplomatic relations between the Jewish state and the countries whose passports were used by the alleged Mossad assassins.
 

The killing raises issues regarding the international legal repercussions for the Israeli government. If the state knowingly sponsored the assassination, likened to a Cold War hit, and the alleged 27 suspects indeed prove to be Israeli nationals, what would be the legal repercussions for Israel?

Consequences diplomatic
According to Yoram Shachar, professor of international law at the Radzyner Law School, Herzlia, al-Mabhuh’s assassination is little more than a matter of “diplomatic embarrassment”: “It is definitely a breach of international law for one state to commit a crime in another sovereign state […]but it is not a call for action by international law.”
 

Shachar says the situation is “extremely fuzzy” from the perspective of international law: “There are no simple answers even if the facts were made known”, he says.
 

“There is the normal defence that is applicable to most states of the world and that is that they acted under orders and by the authority of the state”, Shachar says. “The only exception to that would be if Israel gave an order that is manifestly unlawful and I very much doubt that this particular order, if it is indeed issued by government officials, if manifestly unlawful.”
 

But not everyone shares Shachar’s opinion on the matter.
 

“States involved in extraterritorial killings violate international law”, says Geert-Jan Knoops, professor of international criminal law at the University of Utrecht.
“Yet, a state can not be prosecuted under international criminal law. Only individual members of a government can be subjected to international criminal prosecutions. In particular cases, a State can institute litigation against another State before the International Court of Justice when international law has been breached. So, in theory, the consequences cannot only be "diplomatic".
 

Government sponsored killings
One could raise the question, conversely, on the legality or illegality of so-called government sponsored killings, and whether governments can be held responsible under the law.
 

“Sometimes executions are legal by the laws of states”, says Shachar. “Some executions are lawful in the state of Iran, for instance simply because the state of Iran allows executions. In the state of Florida, executions are absolutely legal … they are government sponsored executions [but] carry no international repercussions at all. People are killed regularly in Florida by the government of the state of Florida.”
 

But, says Knoops, the ‘death penalty’ argument is not a legal norm applicable in this case: “The death penalty, although not internationally abolished, has been widely criticized”, he says. “The international criminal tribunals do not accept the death penalty. Therefore one cannot say that "government sponsored killings" such as the one in Florida are "sometimes legal". Of course, from a domestic law-view the death penalty might be legal. However, from an international law-perspective, the death penalty does not represent a legally accepted norm. Therefore, the notion of "government sponsored killings" remains legally highly disputable.”