Lyons, France / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Dubai police have added 16 more international arrest warrants to the 11 already issued, linked to the 20 January death of Hamas military leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh. Interpol has added the new warrants to its existing Red Notices for the case. Interpol, based in Lyons, insists on the likely use of identity theft by the murderers. “Since Intepol has reason to believe that the suspects linked to this murder have stolen the identities of real people, the Red Notices specify that the names used were aliases used to commit murder,” its web site notes. “Interpol has officially made public the photos and the names fraudulently used on the passports in order to limit the ability of accused murderers from traveling freely using the same false passports.”
The international criminal police organization says it contacted the Geneva-based World Economic Forum in January to alert it to the increased risk of terrorists traveling on documents using stolen identities, which makes it easier for them to avoid detection.
The WEF’s Davos forum was held in the Graubuenden resort at the end of January, with scores of business and political leaders from around the world attending.
Dubai’s police chief Dahi Khalfan Tuesday 9 March told news agency AFP that “I ring alarm bells. Israel is falsifying Western passports on a large scale. We discover forged passports on a daily basis.”
The Australian government, which sent a police investigative team to Israel 1 March, has refused to comment on the latest list, which contains a fourth Australian name. British, French, German and Irish passports were also used.
Ed. note: an Interpol Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant. The Interpol site notes that “The persons concerned are wanted by national jurisdictions (or the International Criminal Tribunals, where appropriate) and Interpol’s role is to assist the national police forces in identifying or locating those persons with a view to their arrest and extradition. These red notices allow the warrant to be circulated worldwide with the request that the wanted person be arrested with a view to extradition.”
Links to other sites: ABC News, Australia, AFP/Google News, The Australian, Interpol, Xinhua
News story, GenevaLunch, 10 March 2010.
Filed under: Politics
Tags: Australia, Britain, France, Geneva, Germany, Hamas, Interpol, Ireland, Israel, Lyons, murder, passports, stolen identity, World Economic Forum
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2 Responses to “Interpol backs Dubai as it adds 16 warrants in Hamas death”
March 10th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Interpol did not issue international arrest warrants. It issued ‘red notices’ which any country is free to ignore.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Thank you for pointing this out. You’re absolutely right and the mistake occurred when I edited a sentence and didn’t notice the final sense I’d given it. I’ve fixed it and added a bit about what the Red Notices are, since you’ve made me realize this might not be clear to people.