Dubai–The hit squad which killed a senior Hamas militant in Dubai last month made use of diplomatic passports, the Gulf emirate’s police chief said in a government-owned newspaper on Sunday.
"There is information that Dubai police will not make public for the moment, especially regarding diplomatic passports" used by some of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s killers to enter Dubai, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan told Al-Bayan.
Mabhouh, a founder of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, was found dead in his hotel room in Dubai on 20 January.
Khalfan did not provide further details on the diplomatic passports.
Last week, Khalfan released the names and photos of 11 suspects with European passports–six from Britain, three from Ireland, one from Germany, and one from France–in the killing.
The use of European passports has sparked a diplomatic furor in which Israeli envoys in the four countries have been summoned for talks.
But on Saturday, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon insisted there would be no crisis in ties with Europe over the use of foreign passports in the Mabhouh murder "as Israel had nothing to do with what happened."
Khalfan, however, has said he is "99, if not 100 percent" sure that Israel’s spy agency Mossad was behind the assassination, and added on Saturday that Dubai had evidence, including wiretaps, of Mossad involvement.
Mabhuh’s killing "is no longer a local issue, but a security issue for European countries," Khalfan said on Sunday, quoted in the Abu Dhabi newspaper Al-Ittihad.
Al-Ittihad said Khalfan has called for Hamas to conduct an internal investigation "about the person who leaked information on Mabhouh’s movements" and arrival in Dubai to his killers.
The source of the leak is the "real killer," Khalfan said.
