3 Uzbeks held in UAE over Israeli rabbi's murder

Emirati authorities said on Monday three suspects from Uzbekistan were in custody over the murder of a rabbi, a rare violent incident involving an Israeli citizen in the UAE.

Tzvi Kogan's death came as a blow to the tiny Jewish and Israeli communities in the UAE, which have kept a lower profile since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October 2023.

The 28-year-old UAE-based rabbi was found dead by security services last week, following what Israeli officials and an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group he was affiliated with called an anti-Semitic attack.

The three suspects were arrested on Sunday, and after "preliminary investigations" the interior ministry identified them in a statement.

"The authorities revealed the identities of the three perpetrators, all of whom are Uzbek nationals," said the statement published Monday by the official WAM news agency.

It named them as Olimboy Tohirovich, 28, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33.

The ministry said authorities were taking "the necessary actions to uncover the details, circumstances and motives of the crime".

Kogan was in the UAE as a representative of the Chabad Hasidic movement, which is known for its outreach efforts worldwide.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday condemned "the murder of an Israeli citizen and a Chabad emissary", calling it "an abhorrent anti-Semitic terrorist attack".

In Washington, the White House urged accountability for the "horrific crime".

Neither Emirati nor Israeli officials provided any details about the circumstances of Kogan's murder.

That year, according to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, Kogan joined his older brother Reuven and a team of rabbis with the group in the UAE.

Chabad said on its website that Kogan had managed a kosher supermarket in Dubai, which an AFP photographer said was closed on Monday with its window blinds shut