Police in Malaysia’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur, August 29, 2015.. (photo credit: REUTERS)
A Hamas-affiliated Palestinian engineer from the Gaza Strip was shot dead on Saturday near the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in an assassination blamed on Israel’s Mossad.
Gaza-based Palestinian news site Safa reported that 35-year-old Dr. Fadi Mohammed al-Batash was leaving a mosque after morning prayers in town of Gombak when he was struck by close to 20 bullets fired by two people on a motorcycle.
In a statement released on their website Hamas said that Batash “was working for the Palestinian cause.”
“The Islamic Resistance Movement mourns the son of its sons, the righteous, and a knight of its knights, a scholar of young Palestine scholars and the guardian of the Book of Allah, the son of Jabalia the Mujahideen,” read the statement.
“The martyr was distinguished by his excellence and scientific creativity and has important contributions in this area and participated in international conferences in the field of energy. The martyr was an example in calling God and working for the Palestinian cause.”
Senior Islamic Jihad leader Khaled al-Batash accused Israel’s Mossad of being responsible for the assassination and calling on Malaysian authorities to conduct a “comprehensive and rapid investigation” before his killers escaped.
“We, as a family, accuse the Mossad of being behind the assassination of Dr. Fadi Mohammad al-Batsh, a researcher in energy sciences,” he said to Al-Miyadin news network.
Family members also accused the Mossad of carrying out the attack on the engineer who was originally from Jabalia in the Gaza Strip before he left for Malaysia in 2011. Batash, who was married with three children, received his BA at the Islamic University of Gaza and completed his PhD in Malaysia.
“We accuse the Israeli Mossad of the assassination of our son, the energy researcher,” said a statement issued on behalf of the family. “Fadi was meant to fly on Sunday to Turkey, to chair an international conference on energy.”
According to reports in Malaysia, police believe that Batash was “targeted” by two people who were riding a BMW motorcycle and had waited for him to arrive at the mosque for some 20 minutes.
“This was a targeted killed and not a terror attack, because there were other people at the scene but the assassins focused only on [Batash],” the police chief was quoted as saying, adding that “we’re not ruling out any line of inquiry, including the possibility that elements identified with ISIS are behind the assassinations.”
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the suspects were believed to be Europeans with links to a foreign intelligence agency, state news agency Bernama reported.
He added the victim had links with foreign intelligence and was active in pro-Palestinian non-governmental organizations, describing him as an expert in electrical engineering and rocket-building.
In December 2017 Hamas’s chief drone expert and engineer Mohamed Zouari, was shot dead in Tunisia in an assassination also blamed on the Mossad. According to Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Zawari, who had been a member of the group for 10 years and supervising its drone program was gunned down in his car near his home close to the city of Sfax.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Comments are closed.