You're reading: Security Service did not contact UN over “kidnapped” Palestinian

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has not asked the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide any information about a Palestinian citizen, Dirar Abu Seesi, who disappeared in Ukraine last month.

"There have been no such requests from SBU," Maxim Butkevich, a counselor with the UNHCR Ukrainian department, has told Interfax.

Earlier, SBU said it was planning to contact UNHCR on the issue in the absence of any information about Seesi’s alleged kidnapping.

On Feb. 18, Seesi, a 41-year-old chief operating officer of an electric power station in the Gaza Strip, reportedly boarded a Kyiv-bound train in Kharkiv and two hours later was taken off and driven in an unknown direction by two men who presented their SBU identification cards.

Seesi has a Ukrainian wife and six children. He spent 12 years in Gaza and was hoping to obtain Ukrainian citizenship.

On March 10, foreign media reported that Seesi was in an Israeli jail.

The UN has repeatedly voiced concern over Seesi’s mysterious disappearance.