Dubai: The extradition of suspects wanted in criminal cases to their home countries by Dubai Police rose by 108 per cent in the first quarter of the year, a senior police official said.

Major-General Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, Assistant Commander-in-Chief for Criminal Investigation Affairs of Dubai Police, said Dubai Police had succeeded in handing over 25 suspects for whom international lookout notices had been issued in the first quarter of 2018, compared to 12 suspects in the same period last year.

“Dubai Police have teams specialised in tracking down suspects and they are deployed across the country. We follow any extradition file from any country after a red warrant from the Interpol,” Major General Al Mansouri said.

He said that in one recent incident, Dubai Police handed over one of the suspects in a deadly factory blaze in 2012 in Baldia town in Pakistan to authorities in that country after he was tracked down in the UAE.

Hammad Seddiqi was involved in the blaze at Ali Enterprises in Karachi’s Baldia town on September 11, 2012, that killed 259 people and left many others injured.

Assumed identity

Col. Saeed Abdullah, deputy director of Wanted Department in Dubai Police, said the fugitive businessman, who owns many factories in his home country, fled the country in 2012 and entered the UAE with a passport displaying a different name.

“We have programs to analyse the suspects’ characters. We identified his ID within 10 days after we received his red warrant from Interpol. We checked on his name first and our records revealed that he didn’t enter the country but later we checked though his picture and found out that he entered the country with a different name,” Col. Abdullah said.

The man was arrested after he walked into a trap set by Dubai Police and subsequently confessed to his actual identity.

“He confessed that he entered the country with a passport bearing a different name. He was convicted and death sentence issued on him by the authority of his country. After finishing the procedures, he was handed over to his country,” the official added.

According to reports in Pakistan, Seddiqi was involved in a blaze that erupted at Ali Enterprises in Karachi’s Baldia Town.

Reports said the high-profile accused — who was handed over by the Interpol to a Pakistani intelligence agency last night — was taken to Islamabad.