Kogan, a dual Israeli-Moldovan national and UAE resident, had previously served in the Israeli army [Credit: X]
The United Arab Emirates foreign ministry announced on Tuesday that Turkish authorities assisted in the arrest of the suspects accused of murdering an Israeli rabbi and former soldier in the UAE.
In a statement carried by the state news agency, the ministry thanked Turkish authorities for “their cooperation in arresting the perpetrators”, without providing further details.
Emirati authorities have said they arrested three Uzbek men for the suspected murder of Tzvi Kogan, a 28-year-old envoy for the Hasidic Chabad movement who had been living in the UAE and was also a Moldovan national.
The three suspects were caught in Istanbul in a secret operation at the weekend by Turkish intelligence and police, acting on a UAE government request, a Turkish security source said.
Turkish intelligence found out which flight the suspects arrived in Istanbul on, and Turkish police caught them after they left the airport, the source added.
Turkey extradited the suspects to the UAE, the source also said.
The circumstances of Kogan’s death have not been disclosed and it is unclear if Emirati authorities have established a motive or where the three suspects were when they were arrested.
Israeli officials have claimed Kogan was targeted because he was Jewish and characterised his killing as “an antisemitic attack”. Israeli agencies are assisting the investigation.
Kogan had been living in the UAE for several years and had been involved in expanding the Jewish community there, after Israel controversially established diplomatic ties with Israel during the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords.
The move was met with uproar and anger from Palestinians and much of the Arab world, who saw the normalisation of ties as a betrayal to their cause. A number of Israelis have since moved to the UAE, while the two counties have signed tourism, business and other deals.
He was reported missing on Thursday and his body was discovered on Sunday.
Uzbek officials have said the Tashkent government was assisting Emirati and Israeli authorities in the investigation.
Two of the detained suspects are aged 28 and a third is 33. The three suspects have been shown blindfolded and in restraints in images released by the UAE ministry of interior.
