DUBAI: Police say powerful drug was used to paralyze Hamas official before he was smothered [Updated]

Police in the United Arab Emirates city-state of Dubai say slain Hamas weapons smuggler Mahmoud Mabhouh was injected with a powerful anesthetic before he was suffocated with a pillow in his hotel room on Jan. 19.

In announcements on Sunday, the police also said they're going to identify one more suspect, another Western-passport holder, linked to the assassination, and are holding an additional Palestinian suspect.

The latest revelations bring the total number of European-passport holders connected to the assassination to 27, as well as three Palestinians. Police in Dubai have blamed the assassination on the Mossad, Israel's spy outfit, a view shared by most intelligence and security experts.

But Israel says no evidence links Mossad to the killing. At least half of the alleged killers used forged Western passports based on the identities of unwitting Israeli nationals.

[Updated, Feb. 28, 2:36 p.m. PST:  Israel may have already reaped diplomatic consequences over its alleged use of forged Western passports in the assassination of Mabhouh. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Australia changed its vote from "oppose" to "abstain" on a United Nations resolution calling on Israel and Hamas to investigate their conduct during their 2009 in the Gaza Strip. "There is no question that the debacle surrounding our passports being used in Dubai helped to make up the government's mind to abstain" on the controversial Goldstone Report, an unnamed diplomat told the newspaper.]

[Updated, March 1, 12:55 a.m. PST: Dubai media are quoting police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim on Monday as saying some of Mabhouh's killers wound up in the United States after pulling off the hit. "Some of them went to America and others to Israel," he told the Gulf News. Previously disclosed details of the suspected killers' travel patterns (PDF) showed them heading to European and Asian cities.]

Dubai police Maj. Gen. Khamis Mattar Mazeina told reporters in Dubai on Sunday that Mabhouh's killers used the drug succinylcholine to sedate him before smothering him with a pillow.

Mazeina said "the assassins used this method so that it would seem that his death was natural as there were no signs of resistance shown by the victim," said an announcement on the website of the Dubai police department. 

The drug is a short-term muscle relaxer that can "cause immediate and temporary paralysis," Mazeina told reporters.

Mazeina told the Khaleej Times, a Dubai daily newspaper, the drug is almost impossible to detect after death and also was used in the killings of Palestinian activists in Kuwait in 2001.

-- Los Angeles Times

Photo: Police Maj. Gen. Khamis Mattar Mazeina. Credit: Dubai police website

Comments

[elihu inselbuch]

Tontana:
This was everything but a careless assasination. Whoever
pulled off this brilliant action took everything into account including Dubai's overreaction. For goodness sakes
over 25 people to erradicate this vermin!!!!! These bozos
are photographing everybody that was passing through the area at the time. They have find some way to draw attention
from the fact that they let this scumbag in or they will looselots and lots of money when businessmen and tourists
stop coming t0 their little piece of the desert.

[Whiskey]

While the Dubai Police have been bizarre (claiming some of the suspected assassins departed for IRAN by boat), the incident is suggestive.

Past Israeli actions by Mossad to kill Hamas and Hezbollah and Fatah terrorists abroad have involved fewer people, and usually involved explosives (copying the successful use by the Baader-Meinhof gang, themselves taught by the KGB and associate intelligence agencies). Explosives are powerful, low risk (of getting operatives caught) and mostly successful if used correctly.

This incident screams a hurried, therefore sloppy window of opportunity to first interrogate (hence drugs / smothering) likely via drugs, a senior Hamas weapons procurer. On questions regarding Hamas having missiles from Iran loaded with chemical, biological (this is more difficult) or nuclear material (not necessarily a nuke -- a dirty bomb is possible). Hamas has a bad tendency to fire lots of rockets at Israel when Iran wants to stir things up. Low trajectories and short flight times makes anti-missile defense from Gaza impossible. Chemical warheads hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem could kill hundreds of thousands of Israelis justifying a risky, hurried operation.

What Israel would want to know was how the warheads/missiles were smuggled into Gaza, and where they are now. Almost any risk seems worth it to know this.

[ABG]

This article is so bad that there isn't even a writer attributed to the byline.

Way to go, LA Times.

[malte loos]

The violently hateful comments on this site just show how deeply rotten a country Israel is and how untenable our continued support of it. Go on folks, just let your hatred and sadism run free. Nothing can be better for the cause of justice than your showing us the true face of Israel, now even in American media.

Palestine will have justice soon and Mahmoud Mabhouch will not have died in vain.

[James Sullivan]

Congratulations on a job well done. I hope that s.o.b suffered.

[Al Wall]

Is executing a proven/known murderer a crime!

[JRG]

Great job, Israel. I'm so jealous of their ability to get things done quickly and right. America could learn a lot from them.

[elihu inselbuch]

ATTENTION!!!!!!To Interpol and other police forces around
the world: the following has entered Dubai on a false passport.

HIS NAME IS FARFUR(the Palastinian Mickey Mouse). A reward
of 10,000 dog biscuits will be rewarded for information leading to his capture

[Bob]

succinylcholine is a paralytic agent. It does not sedate the person, they are conscious: terrified, unable to move.

succinylcholine is the drug mentioned in the 3rd Exorcist movie, to allow the bad guy to wreak havoc on his victims without them being able to put up a fight.

[elihu inselbuch]

The Dubai police must have something to prove. They are
pulling assassins out of the woodwork and from under
every rock. If Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and all their
friends were passing by, they would be photographed and
arrest warrants would be issued for them.

[ladyofargonne]

If our intelligent agencies were this good there never would have been a 9/11.

[goodjew]

Good Job Israel!!! Job Well done!!!

[Superpower]

Ever notice how when Hamas hides behind a Burka and blows up some innocent children on a bus it’s a "righteous beef between two warring factions", but when the Mossad drugs a guy and smothers him with a pillow in a hotel it’s somehow and an outrage, and a three month investigation ensues?

[Joe]

A problem with assassinating is, the other side can do it too even if they succeed or not, that will force Israeli politicians and military personnel to worry about being arrested by other nations justice system in top of being watching for unknown assassin looking to catch them off guard 24 hours a day/365 days a year, that's not much of life to look forward to, not to mention putting all innocent Israelis foreign passport holder in danger of being mistaken for a assassins on assignment!

[Tontana]

Mossad is responsible for the careless assassination .

[bob]

"the drug is almost impossible to detect after death and also was used in the killings of Palestinian activists in Kuwait in 2001."

uh huh.
But those craft Dubai police, they were able to detect it.

If Isreal did this, good riddance.

Besides, why not send some folks in on fake passports to kill a terrorist who was in Dubai on a fake passport. Being as Dubai knew he was a terrorist in their country on a fake passport and did nothing, Israel seems to have corrected the problem.

[Mary]

Giving a muscle-paralyzing agent to a person and then suffocating him is basically torturing him to death.

If that was done by a supposedly-civilized nation, it is horrifying.

[Mark Montgomery]

Good job Israel!