Dubai's police chief said on Monday the suspects in a senior Hamas leader's assassination in the emirate are now hiding out in Israel to avoid arrest and urged the Jewish state to wage its wars at home. "I say (the suspects) are in Israel. Israel says they are in Israel," police chief Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan told a news conference, according to AFP. "If they stay in Israel, they won't be arrested."
But "eventually they will leave, and then, they can be arrested," he added.
Dubai police say they are convinced the Israeli spy agency Mossad carried out the murder. Khalfan urged Israel to fight its conflicts on its own soil. "When (Israel) has a conflict, let it wage the war on its own land, not on our land," he said.
In a newspaper report published on Monday, Khalfan said that a 27th suspect had been identified, also travelling on an European passport. Khalfan appealed to the Western five countries whose travel documents were used to cooperate in Dubai's investigation. "I want the states whose passports were used in the assassination to cooperate with us, and we'll appreciate their cooperation," the police chief said.
According to Khalfan, the suspects will not have dared used US passports. "I think Israel was scared of provoking a clash with the United States which it considers its best friend," he told Al-Khaleej newspaper.
The UAE's central bank is helping to trace the credit cards used by several suspects, Khalfan said in another local paper.
