Photo: 123RF
Israel has released three Fijian UN peacekeepers arrested for drug smuggling, after it emerged the suspicious substance they were carrying across the border was not liquid cocaine.
The three soldiers, serving with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights, were detained on June 25 at Israel's border with Jordan.
Suspicions were raised about perfume-making kits that members of the group were allegedly carrying and "which included bottles with liquid cocaine," an Israeli statement said last week.
The kits prompted a police sniffing dog to react, the joint statement from police and the Tax Authority said.
Their remand was extended last Wednesday, but on Friday they were released "after it turned out that the substance in the bottles was not drugs," a police spokesman told AFP.
Authorities in Suva have confirmed the soldiers were serving in the Fiji Battalion of the UN force.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed the territory in a move not recognised by the United Nations.
In 1974, a UN force was dispatched to a buffer zone and tasked with monitoring a ceasefire.
Today, the force includes about 1000 troops from a dozen nations, including Fiji, Argentina, Ireland, and Nepal.
- AFP