Crime in Other Places in the World !

[toonfandangl]

Most of you would have seen this in the news........... but not the tag line    "Don't f*** with the Mossad".


MAHMOUD al-Mabhouh arrived in Dubai on an Emirates flight from Syria at 3pm on January 19.

According to Dubai's police chief, Lieutenant-General Dahi Khalfan al-Tamim, the 49-year-old gunrunner for Hamas checked into his room at the al-Bustan Rotana Hotel under an assumed name about 4pm. After depositing some documents in the hotel safe, Mabhouh went out for dinner, arriving back at his room by 9pm.

Soon after, police believe, the security-conscious Mabhouh, who routinely blocked the doors to his hotel rooms with heavy furniture, opened his door to a woman. Hours later he was dead, believed poisoned by a mystery drug that at first led investigators to believe he had suffered a heart attack.

Dubai police believe that the suspects, at least seven people carrying European passports, were out of the country before his body was discovered by hotel staff at noon on January 20.

At first, Hamas officials in Damascus went so far as to put out a statement saying Mabhouh had died of natural causes. Nearly 10 days later, autopsy results from France suggested otherwise.

Mabhouh's death had many of the hallmarks of an assassination by Israel's external intelligence agency, Mossad.

In 1989, Mabhouh was part of a team of militants who kidnapped and murdered two Israeli soldiers, Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadon, stationed in the occupied Gaza Strip. Israel either killed or arrested most of those believed responsible, but Mabhouh got away.

Eventually arriving in Damascus, he rose through Hamas ranks to become the movement's liaison with its main weapons supplier, Iran.

Mabhouh may have become a higher-priority target for Israel in November, when the country's military intelligence chief, Major-General Amos Yadlin, told MPs that Hamas had test-fired a rocket with a range of 60 kilometres, which he said had been supplied by Iran. This put Tel Aviv within striking distance of the Gaza Strip.


Only problem was none of the people identified were actually involved in the killing - they were all simply foreign passport holders currently living in Israel, probably having a fairly straightforward day at the office while 11 secret agents pretending to be them went about suffocating a man in a Dubai hotel. I could imagine it's quite the shock to wake up and find out that you're wanted on suspicion of killing a man in a hotel 2000-odd kilometres away. What in God's name are you getting up to while you're asleep? "Now, Cynthia, you're going to be reading some crazy things about Daddy in the papers today. I just want to promise you that Daddy is not a paid killer. Now go place this backpack underneath that car".

[Michael Alexander]

Berlin - A heavily armed group stormed a poker tournament in a German luxury hotel on Saturday afternoon and made off with a jackpot, a police spokesperson said.

Several participants at the tournament in Berlin's Grand Hyatt hotel were slightly injured when they panicked and fled following the daring afternoon heist, Carsten Mueller said.

Mueller said four robbers in disguises forced employees to hand over money, and then managed to escape. Mueller declined to give details, including how much money the men got away with.

The jackpot for the tournament stood at €1m (R10m), according to a European Poker Tour website. The EPT confirmed the heist on the event's blog in an official statement, saying there had been "an armed robbery executed by six men". It was unclear why the number differed from the police count.

The BZ daily quoted witnesses as saying that the robbers were armed with automatic weapons, machetes and hand grenades.

[toonfandangl]

ARE WELL MICHAEL MAYBE THE OTHER TWO WERE COPS !.............. and splitting the loot with them

[Patricia Lotte]

Where's Georg Junior ... is he already on a flight to the Bahamas ...