Dubai: Slain Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was sedated before being suffocated by his alleged Mossad-affiliated assassins, who wanted to leave the impression that he died a natural death, Dubai Police said on Sunday.
The Dubai Police said it had identified the substance used to tranquilise Al-Mabhouh, who was killed in a hotel in Dubai on January 19 and was found dead in his room the next day.
The killers used the drug succinylcholine to sedate Al-Mabhouh before they suffocated him to death, Major General Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina, Dubai Police Deputy Commander-in- Chief, said at a press briefing in Dubai.
He said the assassins acted in such a way so that it would appear that his death was natural as there were no signs of resistance shown by the victim.
He said the post mortem result revealed that the assassins had injected the victim with the drug. However, the results did not show the amount of drug injected as it is
difficult to trace.
A toxicological expert from the General Department of Forensic Sciences and Criminology at Dubai Police, said the drug succinylcholine, also known as Suxamethonium, is limited to short-term muscle relaxation in anesthesia and intensive
care, usually for facilitation of endotracheal intubation.
It has been in use since the pharmacological properties of succinylcholine were discovered around 1950 by K H Ginzel, H Klupp and Gerhard Werner in Vienna.
The Dubai Police had initially released a list of 11 suspects, identified as members of a hit squad who acted to kill the Hamas leader.
The investigators later added identified 15 more suspects and said it had evidence to implicate Israeli spy agency Mossad for the killing.
In what is turning out to be an embarrassment to the Israeli government, Dubai police chief warned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be put on an international
"wanted list" if it was conclusively proved that the Jewish state's spy agency 'Mossad' was behind the murder.
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