Dubai seeks Israeli PM's arrest over hotel murder

Dubai police yesterday said they are seeking the arrest of Israel's Prime Minister and the head of its spy agency over the murder of a top Hamas militant in a hotel room of the Gulf city-state.

Police chief Dahi Khalfan said he had issued the demand for the arrest warrants as he was now certain they ordered the Cold War-style hit on Mahmud al-Mabhuh.

"I have presented the (Dubai) prosecutor with a request for the arrest of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the head of Mossad," Meir Dagan, said Mr Khalfan.

"I am now completely sure that it was Mossad," said the police lieutenant general.

Mr Mabhuh, a founder of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas organisation's military wing, was found dead in a room of the luxurious Al Bustan Rotana hotel near Dubai's airport on January 20.

Dubai police have identified 26 suspects from the hit squad murder they say bore the hallmarks of the Mossad. The Hamas man had been drugged and then suffocated.

Mr Khalfan said last month that Dubai would issue an arrest warrant for Mr Netanyahu if Israel was found to be implicated in the murder of the Palestinian militant.

Mr 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," he was quoted as saying in The National newspaper on February 5.

"We will issue an arrest warrant against him," said the English-language newspaper published in Abu Dhabi.

Police say the suspects entered Dubai on fake passports using the identities of 12 people from Britain, six from Ireland, four from France, three Australians and a German, before fleeing the Gulf emirate.

Two members of the hit squad which killed Mr Mabhuh had "returned to the United States after passing through a European country," said Mr Khalfan, who on Monday said the suspects were hiding out in Israel where they could avoid arrest.

Israeli officials have refused to confirm or deny the reports.

But Israel's media sees the killing as Mossad's work, and the probe has caused a diplomatic headache for the Jewish state with the countries whose passports were used summoning its envoys to hear angry protests.