27/02/2010 Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim urged Meir Dagan, the director of Israel's Mossad, to "be a man" and admit that Israel stands behind last month's assassination of Hamas chief Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, according to a report Saturday in Emirati newspaper Al-Khaleej.
Tamim also told the paper that Dubai has DNA evidence from one of the assassins and fingerprints from the crime scene.
Mabhouh was killed last month in his hotel room in what Dubai police have said they are near certain was a hit by Israel's Mossad. Police said the killers traveled to the Gulf Arab emirate using forged passports from the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Australia.
The Dubai police chief also said he believes Mabhouh's assassins are currently in the Palestinian occupied territories. He said he is seeking the creation of an international team of investigators from the five countries whose passports were used in the assassination, and said those governments are all working closely with Dubai.
Tamim reiterated that if Mossad is found to have been behind the assassination, he would seek the arrest of Dagan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, British daily 'The Independent' reported on Saturday that investigators from Britain's Serious Organized Crimes Agency have arrived in the occupied territories to interview dual nationals whose names were used on forged passports by the assassins Al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month.
The British agency said Friday that arrangements were already being made to speak to the six British-Israeli dual nationals whose names were among those used by the alleged hit squad.
In a related development, Australia said on Saturday it is not satisfied with its Israeli envoy's explanation about the fraudulent use of Australian passports in the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai last month, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Rudd said his government had to "proceed very carefully" in the investigation because of its complex security nature. "When it comes to Australian passport fraud or the use and abuse of Australian passports, this government has an absolutely hard line on defending the integrity of our passport system because millions of the traveling public depend on that each year," Rudd told reporters in Adelaide on Saturday. "That is why the foreign minister has called in the Israeli ambassador and asked for an explanation. Thus far we are not satisfied with that explanation," Rudd said.
Dubai police said on Friday they have DNA proof of the identity of at least one of the killers of senior Hamas strongman Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the emirate country last month. "We have DNA evidence ... from the crime scene. The DNA of the criminals is there," Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim said on the Arab satellite television Al-Arabiya. He said police had "categorical DNA proof on one of the assassins" and fingerprint evidence from several other suspects, providing "100 percent" proof of their identities.
River to Sea
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