(JTA) — Canadian police officials have denied arresting a suspect in the assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai.
The denial, published Wednesday in Canada’s national daily The Globe and Mail, comes a day after Dubai’s police chief told several news outlets that a Canadian security official told him that an arrest had been made over the summer in the January murder of senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room.
Dubai police investigations have pointed to the involvement of 33 conspirators, who allegedly used fake passports from England, Ireland, France, Australia and Germany in order to enter the United Arab Emirates. The suspects were placed on Interpol’s Most Wanted list.
Israel’s Mossad spy agency has been widely suspected as being behind the killing; Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any involvement.
Mabhouh co-founded the military wing of the Islamist Hamas movement and allegedly was in Dubai to conclude a weapons deal when he was killed.
One arrest has been made in the case. Uri Brodsky, who reportedly has many aliases, was arrested at Warsaw Airport in Poland in June and extradited to Germany in August to face charges of the illegal procurement of a German passport.
Brodsky was allowed to return to Israel after a German court released him on bail with a guarantee that he will return to the country if he is sentenced to jail.
