Palestinian lecturer gunned down by Mossad in Malaysia: Islamic Jihad

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement says Israel’s spy agency Mossad was behind the assassination of a Palestinian lecturer in Malaysia.

Malaysian police said on Saturday that the 35-year-old victim, identified as Fadi Mohammad al-Batsh, was shot dead by two gunmen on a high-powered motorcycle near his home at Idaman Puteri condominium in the capital Kuala Lumpur.

“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 to arrive.

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

Batsh was heading to a mosque for dawn prayers, and had been reportedly living in Malaysia for 10 years. He was a lecturer at a private university.

The Palestinian man’s family and a senior Islamic Jihad leader, Khaled al-Batsh, blamed Mossad for the murder.

The family said that the lecturer was supposed to have left for Turkey on Saturday to attend a conference on energy.

Speaking in an interview on Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television network, Khaled al-Batash demanded that Malaysia “conduct a comprehensive and rapid investigation to prevent the escape of the assassins.”

Foreign agent link possible: Malaysia

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said authorities were not discounting the possible involvement of foreign agents in the killing of the Palestinian private university lecturer.

There has been no comment from Israeli authorities.

Batsh was a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause on social media. He had shared many tweets supporting the Great March for Return, and had also voiced his sympathy for slain Palestinian journalist Yaser Murtaja.

Israeli agents are widely believed to have killed numerous Palestinian resistance activists overseas in the past.

Palestinian drone expert Mohamed al-Zawari was killed in his car by multiple gunshots in front of his house in the town of El Ain, located seven kilometers north of Sfax, Tunisia, on December 15, 2016.

The Ezzedinne Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, blamed Israel for the killing, noting that Zawari had been a member of the group for 10 years and had been supervising its drone program.

Mahmoud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas military commander and one of the founders of the Qassam Brigades, was assassinated by Mossad agents at Al Bustan Rotana hotel in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, on January 19, 2010.