IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
DUBAI – Assassins of a top Hamas leader in Dubai are now hiding in Israel to avoid arrest, Dubai’s police chief said Monday, March 1, describing the murder as “an insult”.
“I say (the suspects) are in Israel. Israel says they are in Israel," Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan told a news conference cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“If they stay in Israel, they won't be arrested,” he said. “(But) eventually they will leave and can then be detained."
Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was found dead in a luxury hotel room in Dubai in January.
Police said that Mabhouh was drugged with a muscle relaxant by his assassins and then suffocated.
Twenty-six suspects, using European passports, were named over the murder.
Khalfan said a 27th suspect had been identified, also traveling on an European passport but this time unspecified.
Dubai police chief has said he is “100 percent sure” that Israel’s intelligence service Mossad was behind the Cold War-style killing.
The Times newspaper earlier reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally met a number of Mabhouh’s assassins and authorized the killing.
The killing has brought Israel under mounting pressures over the use of fake European passports, with Israeli ambassadors summoned in several European countries.
Israeli agents have been responsible for numerous assassinations in Europe and across the Middle East in the past four decades, often posing as foreigners.
In 2004, New Zealand accused the Mossad of securing their country’s passports through the Israeli Embassy in Australia.
In 1997, Israeli agents tried to poison Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal in Amman.
Insult
The Dubai police chief said the assassination was an insult to the Emirate and European countries whose passports were forged.
"This is an insult to us, to Britain, to Australia, to Germany and to New Zealand and it's shameful," he said.
Khalfan warned that Dubai will put dual passport holders with Israeli nationality under the microscope.
"In the future, those we suspect of carrying dual nationality (including Israeli) will be treated very carefully," he said.
The United Arab Emirates has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
But the Arab country has established low-level political and trade links in recent years, with some Israeli officials attending events in the Gulf Arab state.
Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer competed in the Dubai Championships last month.
"If Israel and Mossad mistreated Europeans, we will not... Our treatment of Europeans will not be affected," Khalfan said.
Currently, European passport holders can enter the UAE without obtaining prearranged visas. Immigration authorities do not insist on fingerprinting them at entry.
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