Interpol issues arrest warrants for 11 over Dubai hit

Interpol has issued arrest warrants for 11 suspects accused of killing a senior Hamas official in Dubai last month.

The warrants were issued after Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim called on Interpol to issue “a red notice against the head of Mossad… as a killer in case Mossad is proved to be behind the crime, which is likely now.”

According to Tamim, investigations have revealed that the Israeli spy agency Mossad was behind the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

“It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent certain that Mossad is behind the murder,” he told the United Arab Emirates newspaper The National on Thursday.

On Monday, Dubai authorities launched an international manhunt for 11 suspects in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was killed in his hotel room on January 19, hours after he arrived in Dubai from Syria.

The Dubai police identified 11 people, 10 men and a woman, suspected of killing the top Hamas official who had survived at least three other assassination attempts. According to the police, the suspects arrived in Dubai the day before the killing. Five of them carried out the crime while the remaining six served as lookouts, the police said.

Dubai police said on Monday that the 11 suspects had European passports: one French, three Irish, six British, and one German. A French national, identified as Peter Elvinger allegedly acted as the logistical mastermind in the Dubai hit.

Meanwhile, there are reports that Austrian phone numbers were apparently used to plan al-Mabhouh’s assassination.

The Austrian Interior Ministry says the country’s investigators are in touch with the Dubai police to try to get to the bottom of things. Media reports speculate that the killers used up to seven Austrian SIM cards or phone numbers while preparing for the hit.