Mohammed Dahlan 'arranged Yemen assassinations' on UAE’s behalf

The UAE and its middleman Mohammed Dahlan were behind a series of murders in Yemen targeting civilians and politicians, according to a London-based law firm, which says it has evidence.

Turkish news outlet, Anadolu Agency, first reported the opening of a case against the UAE and Dahlan on February 12.

Lawyers from Stoke and White, which is representing victims, American mercenaries were given Emirati ranks and uniforms and were under the command of the UAE Ministry of Defence.

One Yemeni represented by the firm, Abdullah Suliman Abdullah Daubalah, said that a 2015 bomb attack at the Al Islah (Reform) party headquarters in Aden was ordered by Mohammed Dahlan, a Palestinian who serves as the enforcer for the Abu Dhabi royal family.

Another victim alleged suffered torture at the hands of Emirati officials operating in Yemen.

The firm says these incidents constitute war crimes and should be prosecuted under universal jurisdiction laws in the UK, the US, and Turkey.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic, Hakan Camuz of Stoke and White, said the firm had the names of individuals involved in giving orders to the mercenaries. He added that the UAE’s political disagreements with groups in Yemen did not grant it legal authority to commit war crimes.

Terrorist designation

Dahlan is a former Fatah official who was accused of engineering a coup attempt in Gaza against the Hamas government in 2007. When that failed he fled to the West Bank and from there established a close working relationship with the Emiratis.

Since 2011, he has been living in exile from Palestine after investigations into the alleged poisoning of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and later failing to answer corruption charges.

In 2016, a Palestinian court convicted Dahlan of corruption in absentia, sentencing him to three years in prison and ordering him to pay a $16 million fine.

In Palestine, Dahlan has long had a reputation for collaborating with the Israelis.

However, despite his failure in his homeland, Dahlan put his expertise towards planning coups in the UAE’s interest, which is believed to have given him a role in planning the 2013 coup, which overthrew the first and only freely elected president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi.

Dahlan is also the intermediary between the UAE and Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, who is trying to overthrow the legitimate UN-recognised government in Tripoli.

In Turkey, Dahlan has not found the same success in destabilisation.

Turkish authorities have placed a $700,000 bounty on the Palestinian for his role in funding and supporting the FETO terrorist group’s military putsch attempt in July 2016, which led to the martyrdom of 251 Turkish civilians, police officers, and soldiers.  

He is also on the Turkey’s list of designated terrorists.