Palestinian lecturer shot dead in Malaysia

By Mohamed Majid and Adem Salvarcioglu

GAZA CITY, Palestine

A Palestinian family on Saturday accused Israel’s spy agency Mossad of killing a Palestinian lecturer in Malaysia.

Fadi Mohammed al-Batsh, 35, was shot dead by two gunmen on a high-powered motorcade near his home in the capital Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, Malaysian police said.

"The suspect fired 10 shots, four of which hit the lecturer in the head and body. He died on the spot,” the official Bernama news agency quoted Kuala Lumpur police chief Mazlan Lazim as saying.

Mazlan said a recording of a closed-circuit television camera near the scene showed the two assailants waited for about 20 minutes for the Palestinian lecturer.

"We believe the lecturer was their target because two other individuals walked by the place earlier unharmed,” he said.

The lecturer’s family, meanwhile, said Mossad was behind his assassination.

“We accuse Mossad of standing behind the energy researcher’s assassination,” the al-Batsh family in the Gaza Strip said in a statement.

The family called on the Malaysian police to launch an investigation into the killing.

There has been no comment from Israeli authorities on the accusations.

Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, confirmed that the lecturer was a group member.

“The martyr was distinguished by his excellence and scientific creativity,” Hamas said in a statement.

It, however, did not accuse any side of killing al-Batsh.

Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said in a statement that foreign intelligence agents or a hostile country might be behind the attack.

“The attack might be an act of foreign intelligence agents or a country hostile to Palestine,” Hamidi said.

He also claimed that al-Batsh played an active role in NGOs defending the Palestine cause and had links to the intelligence organization of a country, which he did not name.

“We will pursue the case closely, in detail, until the assailants are arrested,” he added.

In late 2016, Palestinian drone expert Mohamed al-Zawari, was shot dead in Tunisia, with Hamas accusing Israel of killing him.

Israel is widely believed to have killed numerous Palestinian resistance activists in the past, many of them overseas.

In 1997, Mossad agents tried -- and failed -- to kill Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal in Jordan by spraying poison into his ear.

Mossad is also believed to have been behind the assassination in 2010 of top Hamas commander Mahmud al-Mabhuh in a Dubai hotel.

Israel has never confirmed or denied its involvement in Mabhuh’s murder.