Report: Dubai police to seek Netanyahu’s arrest

Thursday, March 4, 2010 | by

Dubai police will seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of the Mossad over the assassination of a top Hamas official, according to new reports.

Dubai Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said he will ask Dubai’s prosecutor to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Mossad chief Meir Dagan, Al Jazeera reported March 3.

Tamim told the TV news network that he is “almost certain” that Israel’s Mossad security agency was involved in the Jan. 19 murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a luxury Dubai hotel room. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

Israel does say that al-Mabhouh was a major player in smuggling weapons to Hamas militants who control the Gaza Strip and have attacked Israel with bombs, rockets and mortars for years.

“I am now completely sure that it was Mossad,” the French news agency AFP quoted Tamim as saying.

Dubai police have identified 26 suspects they claim traveled on forged European and Australian passports, in addition to two Palestinians already detained in the investigation.

Media reports said authorities had added a “27th suspect,” but there were no other details given. On March 1, authorities said they were seeking a third Palestinian, but Dubai officials refused to comment.

Dubai police say the suspects used fake British, Irish, French and Australian passports of real people in the assassination. At least 15 of the suspects share names with Israeli citizens, who say they were victims of identity theft and deny having been in Dubai.

At least two of the alleged assassins entered the United States after the murder, the Washington Post reported this week, citing “people familiar with the situation.” The Post reported that one suspect entered the United States on Feb. 14 using a British passport, and another suspect using an Irish passport entered on Jan. 21, a day after al-Mabhouh’s body was found.

There is no record of either man leaving the United States, but they could have left on other passports, the Post said.

Australian officials were expected to arrive in Israel this week to meet Australian-Israeli nationals whose identities were used in the slaying, a spokeswoman for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs said March 2.

Last week, the Australian government summoned the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, over the use of Australian passports. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd later proclaimed he was “not satisfied with [the] explanation” given by Rotem regarding the use of falsified passports in the assassination.

Britain has already sent a special police investigator to Israel to meet with eight Israeli-British dual nationals whose identities have been cited in connection with the slaying.

Shortly after it was discovered that Mabhouh had not died of natural causes — Dubai authorities contend his assassins used a powerful muscle relaxant to incapacitate him before suffocating him with a pillow in his hotel room — Tamim called for Netanyahu’s arrest.

According to the National newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, Tamim said Feb. 5 that the prime minister “will be the first to be wanted for justice, as he would have been the one who signed the decision to kill al-Mabhouh in Dubai.”

Al Jazeera also reported, citing the National, that Dubai had also asked the FBI to investigate the prepaid credit cards used by some of the 27 alleged assassins issued by the U.S.-based Meta Financial Group’s MetaBank.

Meanwhile, the right-hand man of al-Mabhouh confirmed Israeli claims that his boss supplied weapons to Palestinian militants, according to an interview transcript released March 2.

The aide, Mohammed Nassar, who is now based in Damascus, did not reveal specifics about al-Mabhouh’s dealings, but said his boss “never stopped thinking about how to fight the occupation by supplying quality weapons to the Palestinian fighters.”

According to a transcript of his conversation with Hamas’ Al Aqsa radio in Gaza, Nassar said, “He participated with me in searching for weapons.”

Al-Mabhouh and Nassar fled Gaza in the late 1980s, after capturing and killing IDF soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa’adon.

The aide said al-Mabhouh, who was wanted in connection with those killings, knew he was being pursued, telling Nassar before he left for Dubai, “I feel like an army is chasing me.”

Nassar claimed that Arab spies helped Israel’s Mossad agency track al-Mabhouh, but provided no details or evidence. He said he believed those spies were sent either by Hamas’ Palestinian rival, the West Bank government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, or by the intelligence service of either Jordan or Egypt. All three are deeply hostile to the Islamic militant group.

The aide said Hamas militants would avenge al-Mabhouh’s killing with an attack inside Israel, but did not elaborate, saying only that it would be “soon, God willing.”

On March 1, Dubai police announced they will attempt to identify Israelis traveling on foreign passports by assessing their physical features and manner of speaking upon arrival — and will “deny entry to anyone suspected of having Israeli citizenship,” he said.

Tamim said travelers suspected of being Israeli will not be allowed into the Emirates even if they arrive with alternative passports. Many Israelis hold passports of other countries, allowing them to travel to states that have no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

Tamim did not explain what procedures would be used to identify the Israeli visitors, except that the police will “develop skills” to recognize Israelis by “physical features and the way they speak.”

It was also unclear if the measure would apply to Israeli athletes competing in international sports events in the Emirates and how it could affect Israel’s participation in international meetings here.

Last month, Israel’s Shahar Peer was allowed to play in a Dubai tennis tournament, a year after the event’s organizers were fined $300,000 for denying her a visa to participate in the international tournament, citing security concerns.

Diaa Hadid of the Associated Press, several AP correspondents and JTA contributed to this report.

Big jump in Web searches for ‘Mossad’

The popularity of the Mossad, Israel’s secret service agency, continues to rise — at least in terms of Internet searches.

The January killing of senior Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, which many have linked with the spy agency, has led to an increase in the number of Google searches for the word “Mossad.”

According to “Google trends” — which follows Web searching patterns — the number of Google searches for the Mossad increased by four between mid-January, when the murder was first reported in the media, and mid-February. In comparison with 2009, the agency saw a sevenfold increase in the number of Google Web searches.

The United Arab Emirates tops the list of curious countries that have Googled the secret service agency in the past 30 days, followed by Israel, Singapore, Indonesia, Ireland and India. Abu Dhabi takes first place among the cities that have looked up the clandestine organization.     

— ynetnews.com