Chabad Rabbi Yosef Rahimi confirmed the Iranian women were not the missing Israelis.
By Shula Rosen
Israeli police said Wednesday that two women detained in Namibia were Iranian nationals and are not missing Israeli mother and daughter Mali and Liel Yahalomi, correcting earlier reports that the Israelis had been arrested with forged passports.
Police said the detained women falsely claimed Israeli identities and presented a forged passport.
Their detention had initially been linked to Mali and Liel, who drew national attention after disappearing while traveling in Europe in August.
Chabad Rabbi Yosef Rahimi, who is active in Africa, said he went to see the women after receiving information from police and determined that they were not the missing Israelis.
“We received a report from the police. I went to see them at breakfast, and it wasn’t them. They are Iranian, a mother and daughter. During questioning, they claimed they were from Israel.”
Mali and Liel were found about a week after their disappearance on a bus in Buenos Aires, Argentina. An Israeli police representative in South America questioned them and found no indication of criminal wrongdoing, allowing them to continue their travels.
Authorities subsequently assessed that financial difficulties may have contributed to their disappearance.
Investigators determined that the pair’s trip had started in the Czech Republic rather than Vienna, as initially believed.
Mobile phones can be purchased in the Czech Republic without presenting a passport.
Authorities believed Mali and Liel later traveled to Vienna, where they recorded videos for relatives.
Those recordings were not sent until after the pair had apparently continued to Germany.
They subsequently traveled from Germany to Argentina, where authorities eventually located them.
Officials believed at the time that Buenos Aires was not their intended final destination and that the two planned to travel elsewhere, although that location was not disclosed.
Namibia is on the Atlantic coast of southwestern Africa, bordering Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south.
The country gained independence in 1990 and has maintained diplomatic relations with Israel since 2013, although neither country has an embassy in the other. Relations have faced tensions in recent years over the war in Gaza.
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