Sunday 28/02/2010

Dubai Police identified the substance used to tranquilize the Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh before he was killed.

At press briefing held at the Dubai Police General Headquarters, Major General Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina, Dubai Police Deputy Commander-in-Chief, said the killers used the drug succinylcholine to sedate al-Mabhouh before they suffocated him. Al-Mabhouh was found dead in his hotel room in Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in january 20.

According to Major General Al Mazeina, the assassins used this method so that it would seem that his death was natural as there were no signs of resistance shown by the victim.

A toxicological expert from the General Department of Forensic Sciences and Criminology at Dubai Police, said the drug succinylcholine, also known as Suxamethonium, is limited to short-term muscle relaxation in anesthesia and intensive care, usually for facilitation of endotracheal intubation. It has been in use since the pharmacological properties of succinylcholine were discovered around 1950 by K.H. Ginzel, H Klupp, and Gerhard Werner in Vienna, Austria.

He said the post mortem result revealed that the assassins had injected the victim with the drug. However, the results, did not show the amount injected as it is difficult to trace this drug.