DUBAI — Dubai will issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Israel is found to be implicated in the murder of a top militant Palestinian in the emirate, The National newspaper reported on Friday.
Dubai police chief Dhahi Khalfan has said that Israel's spy agency Mossad could have been behind the January 20 killing of Mahmud al-Mabhuh, a founder of the military wing of the Palestinian movement Hamas, in a luxury hotel room.
Netanyahu "will be the first to be wanted for justice as he would have been the one who signed the decision to kill al-Mabhuh in Dubai," The National quoted Khalfan as saying.
"We will issue an arrest warrant against him," said the English-language newspaper published in Abu Dhabi.
It quoted Khalfan as saying Mabhuh was killed using a "Mossad method," but did not elaborate.
The police chief had said Mossad "has carried out operations" previously using similar methods as those used in the Mabhuh murder.
The paper quoted police sources as saying Mabhuh arrived in Dubai on January 19 at 3:15 p.m., and was dead within five hours.
His killers had been in the country less than 24 hours before the murder and left before the body was discovered at the luxury Al Bustan Rotana hotel near the airport.
Mabhuh was in charge of arms purchases for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamist Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip.
Over the years, several Hamas leaders have been killed in what Israel calls "targeted killings."
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