Hamas to Dubai police: Prove collaborator claim

Published today (updated) 22/02/2010 11:36

Gaza - Ma'an -

Hamas said on Monday that Dubai Chief of Police Dahi Khalfan Tamim had yet to provide evidence that a collaborator from within the movement had supplied Mossad with information on Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, who was murdered in his Dubai hotel room in January.

"Who is this person he speaks of, why haven't they disclosed his name and why wasn't he arrested like the two other Palestinians?" party sources said.

UAE media outlets reported that Tamim accused a member of Hamas of providing information to the Israeli intelligence agency on Al-Mabhouh's movements and locations in Dubai to facilitate the hit.

Sources said that the movement had not been informed of the Dubai police's investigations into the murder. "It is illogical to see Hamas learn of case through the media," adding that it was unclear if Tamim's claims were based on evidence or mere speculation.

Hamas spokesman Salah Al-Bardawil said Saturday that Al-Mabhouh's pursuers could have learned of his whereabouts from a telephone call he made to his family before leaving for Dubai, informing them of his hotel details and the online booking he made when purchasing airline tickets.

On Sunday, the British weekly The Sunday Times reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the final authorization to carry out the assassination Al-Mabhouh in Dubai, and that he met with members of the 11-person hit squad, traveling on a host of European passports.

Members of the hit squad had visited Dubai on previous occasions to follow up on Al-Mabhouh's movements and trained in a Tel Aviv hotel to prepare for the hit, the weekly wrote.

UAE summons EU ambassadors to brief them on Dubai hotel crime

 [ 22/02/2010 - 10:28 AM ]

DUBAI, (PIC)--

The United Arab Emirates summoned European Union (EU) ambassadors to brief them on the assassination of senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai, especially since the killers used European passport to commit the crime.

The Emirates news agency said that the minister of state for foreign affairs, Dr Anwar Gargash, summoned the ambassadors to the UAE to brief them on developments in the case and to seek their continued cooperation with the investigation.

"The abuse of passports poses a global threat, affecting the countries' national security as well as the personal security of travelers," UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah Al-Nahayan said.

"We are fully committed to bring those responsible to justice," Al-Nahayan added.

In the same context, the Daily Telegraph newspaper quoted British foreign affairs officials as saying that Israeli immigration officials at Tel Aviv airport secretly copied the British passports which were then used by the Mossad hit squad which assassinated Mabhouh.

The six British citizens whose identities were stolen and used by the killers all had their passports taken away from them briefly during routine checks at the airport, the newspaper said.

This new revelation will put further pressure on the Israeli government which has been at the center of a growing diplomatic storm over its possible involvement in the murder of Mabhouh in Dubai last month.

The newspaper noted that all six British passports were not biometric, which means they did not have a computer chip embedded in them and so the fraud was relatively easy.

Hamas urges European countries to act against Netanyahu for Dubai crime

 [ 21/02/2010 - 07:36 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

 Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called on the countries whose passports were used by the Mossad in Dubai operation to prosecute the perpetrators and those who gave orders especially Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a press release, spokesman Abu Zuhri said that the information revealed by the British Sunday Times newspaper on Netanyahu’s approval of the assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh is consistent with what his Movement had already stated about the Mossad’s responsibility for the crime.

He noted that the Mossad cannot carry out any operation before taking the OK from the Israeli premier.

Abu Zuhri also strongly denounced the UN for not including the crime of assassinating one of Hamas senior officials in Dubai in its monthly report on the situation in the Middle East and accused the UN of covering up the Israeli "terrorism".

The spokesman stressed that the exclusion of Dubai crime from this report challenges the credibility of this international institution and confirms its bias in favor of Israel against the Palestinian usurped rights.

In a separate statement, the Movement of Hamas on Sunday stressed the need for coordinating and combining the efforts with Dubai officials to disclose the circumstances of the assassination of Mabhouh instead of making hasty media remarks.

The Movement rejected the claims made by the Dubai chief of police about the involvement of a Hamas member in the operation, asserting that the Mossad’s intelligence activities against its leaders do not mean that there is internal security breach.

The statement pointed out that Hamas already started its investigation into the crime, but it hopes that the authorities in Dubai would cooperate with it in this regard.

In the same context, senior Hamas official Salah Al-Bardawil told Al-Jazeera satellite channel on Sunday that his Movement asked more than once the authorities in Dubai to involve it in the investigation on the killing of Mabhouh, but to no avail.

Bardawil stressed that the accusation made by the Dubai chief of police of the involvement of a Hamas member is only a conclusion.

He added that Hamas knows that the Palestinians involved in the assassination were affiliated with Fatah, but it considers them as Mossad agents and refuses to accuse Fatah of participating in the crime.