The UAE's Interior Ministry made its first official statement today (Saturday) in the matter of Rabbi Tzvi Kogan, a Chabad emissary who has gone missing since Thursday and who is believed to have been kidnapped or murdered by Iranian agents according to Israeli sources.
According to Kann reporter Roi Kais, the ministry said that it received a report from Kogan's family, per which he had disappeared and contact was lost with him since Thursday.
Denying reports from Israeli sources that Israeli requests for state help in the investigation were rebuffed or ignored, the ministry said that it began investigating the matter immediately, and that the public should base itself on official reports rather than "tendentious rumors and false news meant to cause confusion in society."
For reasons unknown, the statement referred to Kogan's Moldavian citizenship but not to his Israeli citizenship, despite the ostensibly warm relations between Israel and the UAE since the signing of the Abraham Accords.