Assassins hid in Israeli minister convoy: Hamas

News ID: 483

Publish date: 01 February 2010 - 13:42

Hamas says the assassins of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of the Palestinian resistance movement's senior figures, could have used an Israeli ministerial convoy as a cover.

Commenting on the last week assassination of the 50-year-old co-founder of Hamas' armed wing Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades in Dubai, senior member of the Hamas leadership Mahmoud al-Zahar said the perpetrators could have accompanied Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau's convoy into the United Arab Emirates.

"A week before the assassination Uzi Landau visited the emirates and he may have had people traveling with him under false names and additional citizenships," the Israeli news website Ynet quoted Zahar as saying to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television on Saturday.

According to Mabhouh's brother Fayed, the first results of a joint investigation by Hamas and the UAE show that he was killed by an electrical device that was held t

o his head.

The resistance movement has asserted in a statement that "we hold Israel responsible for the assassination of our brother and leader."

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas' political bureau told Press TV, that the victim "spent a long time in Israeli jails and when he was released from prison, they monitored him as he continued to play his important role in continuing to implement resistance activities in Palestinian refugee camps and as a result he was targeted. The Israeli enemy is completely responsible for this crime."

"The mood is one of anger today here in Damascus as family and friends come to pay their final respects to one of the most prominent and respected figures in the Hamas movement," said Press TV's correspondent from the Syrian capital, where al-Mabhouh's funeral was held of Friday.

source: www.presstv.ir