Three suspects held in the United Arab Emirates over the murder of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi are from Uzbekistan, authorities in the Gulf state announced Monday, saying they were working to determine their motives.
UAE-based rabbi Tzvi Kogan, 28, 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.
Kogan’s death came as a blow to the tiny Jewish and Israeli communities in the Muslim-majority UAE, which prides itself on its safety, stability and religious tolerance.
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.
An Israeli official, briefing journalists on condition of anonymity, said Kogan’s body could be repatriated Monday.
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement said that he would “be laid to rest in Israel”.
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.
‘Crime against the UAE’
The UAE normalised relations with Israel in 2020 alongside Bahrain and Morocco in a series of US-brokered agreements known as the Abraham Accords.
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.
There is no figure for the number of Jews in the UAE, but an Israeli official has told AFP there were about 2,000 Israelis in the Gulf country, with the Jewish community estimated to be up to twice that figure.
UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash insisted Sunday the country remained “a society of tolerance and coexistence”, in a post on social media platform X that made no direct reference to Kogan.
Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the United States, said that “Kogan’s murder was more than a crime in the UAE – it was a crime against the UAE.”
“We reject extremism and fanaticism of every kind,” he posted on X.
Low profile
The oil-rich Gulf state, whose population is made up mainly of expatriates, opened its first official synagogue within an interfaith centre in its capital Abu Dhabi last year to cater to the small but active Jewish community that had previously prayed in private.
The Jewish community has kept a lower profile during the Israel’s war on Gaza since October 2023.
A senior UAE rabbi, Elie Abadie, condemned Kogan’s death as a “tragic and terrorist act” and eulogised him as “an exemplary human being”.
“This tragic and terrorist act of murdering an innocent Jew is an affront to the entire Jewish community and the peaceful coexistence in the UAE,” Abadie told AFP.
Israel renewed a warning for Israelis to avoid any non-essential travel to the UAE, and advised citizens already in the Gulf country to take extra precautions.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu said in a statement on X that “we mourn the tragic loss” of Kogan and “strongly condemn this hateful act”.
“Our thoughts are with his family, the Jewish community, and all who grieve,” she said.
