Yesterday's NY Post had one on Yasser Arafat's billion dollar "personal" fortune... Sometimes crime pays.
ARAFAT STOLE $8M A MONTH: PLO TREASURER
By URI DAN
August 19, 2002 -- TEL AVIV - An ex-treasurer of the Palestine Liberation Organization has accused Yasser Arafat of taking more than a half-billion dollars in international aid - and transferring it to his personal accounts.
The shocking allegation comes on the heels of an Israeli intelligence report released last week that said Arafat had secretly amassed at least $1.3 billion in bank accounts in Europe, Arab countries, the Far East and the United States.
The accusation comes from Jawad Ghussein, 71, who worked for Arafat from 1984 to 1996. He alleges that Arafat moved up to $8 million into his personal accounts each month starting in 1993, according to interviews published yesterday in Israeli newspapers.
The money was allegedly taken from aid that had been given by other Arab countries, Europe, the United States and Japan, and was intended for construction, education and food for the Palestinian people, Ghussein said.
Ghussein - who served as secretary general of the Palestinian National Fund, a position that gave him oversight of PLO finances - said he resigned in 1996 because of the corruption.
"The contributing countries started asking me questions about the money that had disappeared. I couldn't give them any answers," he said. "I resigned and warned some of the contributing countries about what was going on."
Ghussein says he was arrested in April 2001 by the PLO on false charges of embezzlement, and placed under house arrest.
During a recent medical leave in East Jerusalem, he escaped to Jordan with Israel's help and then went on to London last week.
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo claimed Ghussein is the only "thief" in this case.
Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian officials announced last night they had agreed on a plan to have Israeli troops withdraw from parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
Israel said it had agreed on the condition that the "Palestinian side takes responsibility to reduce violence."
In another development, the Israeli Supreme Court yesterday issued a temporary injunction barring the army from using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
The ruling comes a week after the army had a Palestinian teen put on a bulletproof vest and go to the door of a suspected Hamas leader. The 19-year-old was killed in a hail of bullets when the door opened.
nypost.com |
