UAE says Uzbeks arrested over Israeli-Moldovan rabbi’s murder

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates say they have identified three Uzbek nationals as the suspects arrested over the murder of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi and said they were working to determine a motive.

The interior ministry published photos of three blindfolded men whom it named as Olimboy Tohirovich, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim and Azizbek Kamilovich.

The body of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a 28-year-old emissary for the Orthodox Jewish organisation Chabad Lubavitch in Abu Dhabi, was found on Sunday, three days after he had disappeared.

Israel condemned the killing as an “abhorrent antisemitic terrorist attack” and vowed to track down those responsible. Moldova also called it an “act of antisemitism”.

The UAE’s ambassador to the US said it was a crime against the Gulf Arab state, which established full diplomatic and trade relations with Israel in 2020.

Rabbi Kogan’s funeral is expected to take place at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem on Monday evening, after an Israeli religious organisation that collects remains of the dead for burial said a plane carrying his body had left the UAE.

“At this moment, his coffin has been placed on a flight to Israel,” Zaka said in a statement.

The UAE’s interior ministry announced on Monday that security authorities had “begun initial investigations with the three suspects arrested for committing the murder of Moldovan resident Zvi Kogan in preparation for referring to the public prosecution”.

It also expressed a commitment to “swiftly take the necessary measures to uncover the details, circumstances and motives of the incident”.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper cited Emirati security sources as saying over the weekend that a suspected cell “indirectly operated by Iran” was responsible.

However, Iran’s embassy in the UAE said it “categorically rejects allegations” of any Iranian involvement.

On Monday, the Israeli news website Ynet reported that the killers might be linked to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas or another “terrorist organisation”.

Rabbi Kogan was in the UAE as an emissary for Chabad, which caters to the religious, social and humanitarian needs of Jews around the world, and he also managed a kosher supermarket in Dubai.

The rabbi was reported missing by his wife after he did not show up to a meeting on Thursday.

Chabad said he was abducted in Dubai and driven towards the border with Oman.

His car was abandoned in Al Ain, which is about 90 minutes’ drive away from his home in Abu Dhabi, his body was found on Sunday morning after “security and intelligence agencies from a number of countries co-ordinated an intensive investigation to locate him”, it added.

Speaking at the start of the Israeli government’s weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to track down the rabbi’s killers.

“The State of Israel will use all means, and will deal with these murderers, and those who dispatched them, to the fullest extent of the law. None of them will get away,” he said.

Moldova’s President, Maia Sandu, said her country mourned “the tragic loss” of Rabbi Kogan and “strongly condemn this hateful act”.

“Our thoughts are with his family, the Jewish community, and all who grieve,” she said.

Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the US, said: “Zvi Kogan’s murder was more than a crime in the UAE – it was a crime against the UAE. It was an attack on our homeland, on our values and on our vision.”