Palestinian lecturer shot dead in Malaysia, Hamas blames Mossad

Fadi Albatsh, was a 35-year-old electrical engineer from the Gaza Strip. He was on his way to a nearby mosque for dawn prayers at around 6am when two men on a motorcycle fired at him.  

"They fired ten shots at him as he was walking out of the Idaman Puteri condominium," said Kuala Lumpur police chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Mazlan Lazim.

Lazim said the assailants had shot ten rounds at the man, instantly killing him on the spot.

"There were four bullet wounds on his body and we recovered two bullets at the scene," he said, adding that investigations were ongoing.

Fadi Albatsh, a lecturer at the British Malaysian Institute at the University of Kuala Lumpur, was described by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas as one of its own members.

Media affiliated to the Palestinian movement blamed "the Mossad" for the assassination. According to Hamas, Albatsh was a "martyr who was characterised by his excellence and scientific creations. He has made important contributions in this field. He participated in international conferences in the field of energy. He set an example by growing closer to Allah and in his activity for the Palestinian issue."

Palestinian websites have identified Albatsh as a relative of a senior official in Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. Khaled Albatsh also accused the Israeli Mossad of carrying out the hit, and called on the Malaysian authorities to undergo an urgent investigation to expose those responsible for the killing before they have a chance to flee the country.

According to Malaysian media reports, the gunmen waited for Albatsh for 20 minutes until he arrived at the scene.

The police said it believes "this was a targeted killed and not a terror attack, because there were other people at the scene but the assassins focused only on (Albatsh)".

"We're not ruling out any line of inquiry, including the possibility that elements identified with ISIS [Islamic State group] are behind the assassinations," police added.

Originally from Jabalia in the Gaza Strip, Albatsh, worked in Gaza's electric company before leaving for Malaysia in 2011.

Albatsh lost eighteen members of his extended family in a deadly bombing in Gaza during the 2014 Gaza war dubbed Protective Edge.