LYON : International police agency Interpol issued arrest notices Monday for 16 further suspects wanted by Dubai for the assassination of a Hamas leader in his luxury hotel room.
Alongside the new alerts, Interpol also announced that it had joined a Dubai-based international police task force investigating the killing.
The announcement brought to 27 the total number of suspects on Interpol's wanted list for the January 19 murder of Mahmud al-Mabhuh, which Dubai police allege was ordered by the Israeli secret service Mossad.
Mabhuh, a founder of the Hamas movement's military wing, had been drugged and suffocated, apparently by a group of people seen on hotel closed-circuit security cameras following him to his room.
Interpol's "Red Notices" -- which are not international arrest warrants but alert member states that Dubai would like the suspects to be arrested and extradited -- made no mention of the alleged Israeli connection.
Instead it provided what it said were photographs and known aliases of 16 suspects, including six who were using British and three Australian passports, along with several whose nationalities were not given.
Interpol said the latest suspects' aliases were: Mark Daniel Sklar, Gabriela Barney, Roy Allan Cannon, Stephen Keith Drake, Daniel Marc Schnur and Philip Carr, travelling on British passports.
Suspects travelling as Adam Marcus Korman, Nicola Sandra McCabe and Joshua Daniel Bruce had Australian passports, according to Interpol's website.
Interpol gave no nationality for Chester Halvey, Anna Shauna Clasby, Ivy Brinton, David Bernard Lapierre, Melanie Heard, Joshua Aaron Krycer and Eric Rassineux. Dubai has said they carried German, Irish and French passports.
"Investigative information provided by the authorities in Dubai bore out the international links and broad scope of the number of people involved," said the statement, issued from Interpol's Lyon headquarters.
Interpol said the newly listed suspects formed the second of the two teams, in addition to 11 for whom Interpol issued arrest alerts on February 18.
Three Palestinians have also reportedly been arrested in connection with the investigation.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2010
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