The United Arab Emirates late Monday morning released the first photos of the three suspects in the murder of Chabad emissary Rabbi Zvi Kogan, whose body was found in the city of Al-Ain three days after he was kidnapped from Dubai.
The UAE Interior Ministry announced that the three suspects are citizens of Uzbekistan. They are named as Olimpi Tohirovic, 28; Mahmoud John Abdul Rahim, 28; and Azizi Kamilovic, 33. No suspected motive for the murder was announced, though Israel has called it an antisemitic terrorist attack.
The announcement about the arrest of the three, which was undertaken, according to the United Arab Emirate, "with record speed," did not identify Kogan as Israeli, referring to him only as a "Moldovan citizen," though he holds dual citizenship.
The Iranian Embassy in the Emirates on Sunday night rejected claims about the involvement of the Islamic Republic. Even earlier, Ynet learned that the latest assessment is that the terrorists who murdered Kogan were not acting on behalf of Iran but, apparently, on behalf of Islamic Jihad, Hamas or another terrorist organization.
The murder has shaken the UAE's Jewish community, which Jewish groups estimate to number in the several thousand.
Kogan was a resident of the UAE and also a Moldovan national, according to local authorities. He lived in the UAE for several years, working as a Chabad emissary.
Israeli agencies are taking part in the investigation, an Israeli official told Reuters on Sunday. The Moldovan foreign ministry has said that it is contact with UAE authorities.
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UAE Ambassador to Washington Yousef Al Otaiba has said that Kogan's murder was a crime against the Gulf Arab country, which sits on the Arabian Peninsula and across the Gulf from Iran.
Rabbi Zvi Kogan leads Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in 2021
The Israeli and Jewish community in the UAE has grown more visible since 2020, when the Gulf Arab country established official ties with Israel under a U.S.-brokered agreement.
The UAE has maintained ties with Israel amid the 13-month-old Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.