Dubai names suspects wanted for killing of Hamas man

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Police in Dubai are to issue arrest warrants for 11 "agents with European passports" suspected of assassinating a top Hamas official last month.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was murdered in his hotel room in Dubai on 20 January.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, said he was in Dubai to buy weapons for the organisation and accused Israeli agents of killing him.

Dubai's police chief said six of the suspects had British passports, three were Irish, one French and one German.

The Britons were named as James Leonard Clarke, Stephen Daniel Hodes, Paul John Keeley, Michael Lawrence Barney, Jonathan Lewis Graham and Melvyn Adam Milliner.

One of the group was a woman with Irish papers in the name of Gail Folliard. The other Irish suspects were named as Kevin Daveron and Evan Dennings.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and their Irish counterparts have said they are investigating.

Officials in Dubai said the team appeared to be a professional hit-squad, most likely sponsored by a foreign power, suggesting the team were operating on false documents.

He showed CCTV footage of the group entering the hotel where Mr Mabhouh was staying.
At one point the men appear to don wigs and false beards.

"We do not rule out the involvement of Mossad (the Israeli secret service), but when we arrest those suspects we will know who masterminded it," Lt Gen Dhafi Khalfan Tamim said.

"We have no doubts that it was 11 people holding these passports, and we regret that they used the travel documents of friendly countries," Lt Gen Tamim said.

Lt Col Tamim said the identities had been passed on to Interpol, as part of an official request for international arrest warrants to be issued.

Mr Mabhouh was electrocuted and suffocated, according to reports last month.

Lt Gen Tamim said the suspects had followed Mr Mabhouh into Dubai from Syria, where he lived since 1989, before fanning out to stay at different hotels to avoid detection.


PA says won't reveal identity of Palestinian suspects

Police in the United Arab Emirates announced Monday at the hotel in which the assassination took place that two Palestinians were arrested on suspicions that they were involved in the hit. 

According to a report in the al-Arabiya news network, Jordan handed over the two suspects to Dubai.
Al-Jazeera added that one member of the duo met with the cell's commander, a French citizen known as Peter Elvinger. The other man, according to the report, served in a security position in the Palestinian Authority.

The arrest of the two Palestinians suspected of being involved in the assassination, has reignited the finger pointing between Hamas and Fatah.
Hamas claimed Tuesday that the two arrested men, who served in the Palestinian security forces, are proof that the Palestinian Authority played a role in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on January 20. The PA denied the allegations. "If they want, Hamas can reveal the identity of the suspects," challenged the PA.
Hamas spokesman, Ayman Taha, said Tuesday that the PA's involvement in Mabhouh's assassination stems from its defense cooperation with Israel. Taha called on UAE authorities not to keep information from Hamas. "This development obligates the Dubai authorities to allow for cooperation with representatives of the Hamas movement in the investigation," Taha asserted.
The PA has denied the allegations and claimed that two men were actually Hamas operatives. A spokesman for the Palestinian security forces,, Adnan al-Dmeiri, said that the two detainees received their rankings from the Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip and are members of the Islamic movement's militia.
"If their claims are correct, they can reveal the names of the suspects and the organizations in which they worked. We, for our part, do not want to reveal the names and are leaving this up to the Dubai police," said al-Dmeiri.
The Dubai Police are refusing in the meantime to reveal the suspects' identities, apparently in an effort to avoid embarrassing one of the parties.
If the two indeed are Hamas members, this would explain the Dubai Police's refusal to allow Hamas to participate in the investigations.

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