GENEVA – A killer — or killers — may be on the loose in Europe after a Hamas operative was slain last month in Dubai.

European nations, however, seem to be in no rush to find him, her or them.

The spotlight is falling on those countries where police say the alleged assassins' trails begin and end: Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Authorities there have either declined to say whether they are investigating, or told The Associated Press they have no reason to hunt down the 26 suspects implicated in the Jan. 19 killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

European countries' reluctance to investigate may have something to do with the widely held belief that the killing of al-Mabhouh was carried out by a friendly country's intelligence agency — Israel's Mossad. The Jewish state has previously identified him as the point man for smuggling weapons to the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers.

Experts say arresting Israeli agents — or even digging up further evidence that Israel was involved — could be politically costly.

"I would guess that it's in the political interest of certain countries not to get proactive in this case," said Victor Mauer, deputy director of the Center for Security Studies at Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology.

"Countries such as Germany have a special relationship with Israel because of their history and therefore wouldn't be interested in investigating," he said.

Switzerland's federal prosecutor's office says it has "no evidence relating to this case that would justify opening an investigation," although Dubai police insist that eight of the suspects fled Dubai for Zurich.

Dutch and Italian officials, too, said they aren't investigating the flight of six suspects to Amsterdam and Rome.

All three countries say they haven't received an official request for help from Dubai yet, though authorities there have asked Interpol to circulate arrest warrants that the Arab emirate issued for 11 suspects charged with "coordinating and committing the murder."

Dubai police did not respond to repeated requests by The Associated Press for comment on cooperation with European and other police agencies in the investigation. But Dubai Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim was quoted by the Dubai-based Al Bayan newspaper Saturday as saying that an international security team has been created through diplomatic channels to aid in the cross-border hunt. No other details were given in the report.

France, meanwhile, has said it is only probing the alleged use of three French passports in the crime. Two suspects landed in Paris on Jan. 20. Their trail ends there.