The Palestinian would like to know what happened to the money. I wish them luck:
"You couldn't spend one shekel without Arafat's approval," said a source in the Palestinian Finance Ministry. "He literally controlled all the finances of the Palestinian Authority and it was impossible to issue a check without his signature."
Arafat and many of his top aides diverted hundreds of millions of dollars from the PA budget to secret bank accounts in various parts of the world, including Israel. No one knows how much of the money went to Arafat's private Swiss bank accounts.
"Arafat is taking with him to the grave the secret of the bank accounts, much to the dismay of most Palestinians," said a Palestinian editor in Ramallah. "This is a tragedy. The Palestinian people are among the poorest in the world, while their leaders are among the richest."
Arafat's secret assets have been estimated at anywhere between $200 million (Forbes magazine) and $6 billion (US and Israeli intelligence). Forbes listed him sixth in its 2003 ranking of the world's wealthiest "kings, queens and despots."
Jawid al-Ghussein, a former PLO finance minister who lives in London, said Arafat's financial empire was worth up to $5. ($6.6b. at present rates) when Ghussein resigned in 1996.
The assets are managed in a complex network of bank accounts, investments in airlines, banana plantations and hi-tech companies, and stocks whose details are known only to his closest confidant, financial adviser Muhammad Rashid.
This week, as Arafat was lying on his deathbed in Paris, Rashid denied that Arafat had secret bank accounts anywhere.
jpost.com |
