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Comments (0)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.
Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said he will ask Dubai’s prosecutor to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Meir Dagan, Al Jazeera reported Wednesday.
Tamim told the television news channel that he is “almost certain” that Israel’s Mossad security agency was involved in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room in January. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
“I am now completely sure that it was Mossad,” the French news agency AFP quoted him as saying.
Tamim called for Netanyahu’s arrest shortly after it was discovered that Mabhouh had not died of natural causes.
Netanyahu “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,” The National newspaper quoted Tamim as saying on Feb. 5.
Al Jazeera also reported, citing the United Arab Emirates newspaper The National, that Dubai had also asked the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation 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.
Palestinians Attack Israeli Soldiers on Reopened Road
Palestinians fired at Israeli soldiers at an army post located on a highway that recently was ordered to reopen to Palestinian traffic.
There were no injuries in Tuesday night’s automatic rifle attack near the West Bank city of Ramallah, which reportedly came from a car that fled to a nearby Palestinian village.
Highway 443, which was built in the 1980s, was closed to Palestinian traffic in October 2000 after the launching of the second Palestinian intifada.
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled last December that the road must open to Palestinian traffic. The court agreed with a petition filed by Palestinians living in six towns and villages along the route of Highway 443, which connects Jerusalem with Modi’in and several Jewish towns in the West Bank, and is a popular alternative route for travel between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
“This is an advertisement for what will happen if the court decision is implemented,” lawmaker Michael Ben Ari of the National Union Party said. “The judges must understand that first of all they have to concern themselves with the security of Israeli citizens, and not freedom of movement for those who take advantage of it.”
Police Query Israel’s Lieberman Over Obstruction
Police questioned Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for allegedly obstructing an investigation against him.
Lieberman was questioned Tuesday for two hours. He is under suspicion of obtaining secret information from Israel’s former ambassador to Belarus regarding the investigation, according to reports.
Lieberman is suspected of laundering millions of shekels through straw companies, including while serving as a public official, and of obstructing the investigation into the money laundering.
In a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, Lieberman’s attorney called for an investigation of the Israel Police over leaked information to the media regarding the corruption probes, Haaretz reported.
Police had asked the former envoy to Belarus, Ze’ev Ben Aryeh, to help in the Lieberman corruption probe by questioning Belarus banks and government officials. Ben Aryeh is accused of turning a copy of the request over to Lieberman in October 2008.
Lieberman is now under suspicion of advancing Ben Aryeh’s position in the Foreign Ministry in exchange for the information. Ben Aryeh is the legal adviser in Lieberman’s office.