The UAE Arrests 3 Uzbek Nationals For The Killing Of An Israeli-Moldovan Rabbi

The United Arab Emirates said Monday police arrested three Uzbek nationals for the killing of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi.

The statement from the country’s Interior Ministry offered no motive for the slaying of Zvi Kogan.

Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.

The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. But Israel’s devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah militant group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the UAE.

The Interior Ministry statement identified the three men as Olimpi Tohirovic, 28, Mahmoud John Abdul Rahim 28, and Azizi Kamilovic, 33. The state-run WAM news agency carried images of the three men, their faces blurred. It did not say if charges had been filed against the men.

Read more: AP