2011-03-10 [UPDATE] UN confirms Mossad kidnaps Gaza’s chief power plant engineer, Dirar Abu Seesi, from Ukraine, suspects Ukrainian help

According to the AP, the UN has confirmed that Israel's Mossad kidnapped Gaza's chief power plant engineer and illegally rendered him to an Israeli torture center and then prison, where he is currently held.

Maksim Butkevych, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ukraine, said the agency "suspects Israeli and perhaps Ukrainian security forces had a hand in his disappearance and imprisonment in Israel." (Source: AP)

"We don't know details of his trip from Ukraine to Israel — let's put it this way," said Butkevych. "But unfortunately, what happened looks like a violent abduction and not a legal extradition or any other legal action on the part of authorities." Both the Israeli and Ukrainian Foreign Ministries declined to comment on the U.N. allegations. (Source: AP)

According to Richard Silverstein, "Thanks to a major AP story breaking the Dirar Abu Seesi case, the Shabak has modified its gag order and allowed reporting inside Israel that derives from foreign sources (such as AP). But Israeli media are still not allowed to develop their own original reporting, so that leaves us to continue our work." (Source: richardsilverstein.com)

Israel, by kidnapping Dirar Abu Seesi, has violated UN human rights conventions, in particular the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, signed by 110 countries with the exception of Israel and the U.S. (Source: richardsilverstein.com)

Speculating as to Israel's motives, Silverstain says:

"As the chief engineer of Gaza’s power plant [Abu Seesi] may know a good deal of technical information Israel would like to have about the plant, how it operates, how it can be shut down. In fact, given the success of Stuxnet in penetrating Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel would have a definite interest in being able to penetrate the Gaza plant with a remote program and shut it down during hostilities without having to destroy it as it did during Operation Cast Lead." (Source: richardsliverstein.com)

According to the AP, Abu Seesi's Ukrainian wife, Veronika, "My husband was the heart of the only electric station in Gaza, or rather its brain. It's a strategic object and they wanted to disable it." (Source: AP)

[2011-03-08 Mossad kidnaps Gaza’s chief power plant engineer, Dirar Abu Seesi, while in Ukraine. Now en route from Petah Tikva torture center to Shikma Prison]

On February 18, Gaza’s chief power plant engineer, Dirar Abu Seesi, was kidnapped by the Mossad, while he was traveling in the Ukraine. Abu Seesi is now in Shikma Prison outside Ashkelon after being transferred from the Shabak torture center in Petah Tikva. (Source: richardsilverstein.com, also Ukraine-based Al Raed Press, and Yediot)

According to Richard Silverstein(@richards1052):

[Silverstein] confirmed through the Israeli NGO, HaMoked, that the story of the kidnapping and smuggling of Dirar Abu Seesi is under Israeli military censor gag order. [Silverstein spoke] to [Abu Seesi's] attorney, Michal Rochabi-Dansiger, a government appointed public defender, and she is not allowed to breath a word of his story or detention.

Ukrainian authorities confiscated Abu Seesi's passport, but the document was returned to him shortly before the disappearance on a train en route from Kharkiv to Kiev. His wife, a Ukrainian citizen, Veronica Abu Seesi, said that her husband is in the public service and in no way connected to terrorist organizations. (Source: NewsRu.com)

Silverstein also reports that he is "still waiting to hear an explanation from Ukrainian authorities about how Israeli intelligence agents were able to kidnap a foreign citizen on their state transport system and spirit him out of the country right under the noses of Ukrainian authorities." (Source: richardsilverstein.com)

Israel, by kidnapping Dirar Abu Seesi, has violated UN human rights conventions, in particular the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, signed by 110 countries with the exception of Israel and the U.S. (Source: richardsilverstein.com)

*Photo of Dirar Abu Seesi via richardsilverstein.com