Town of Braintree

Diverted 900 Million Dollars in

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There has been much speculation about how much money went to support the lavish living of his wife, Suha, in Paris, with reports from her enemies in the Palestinian Authority of subsidies of some 100,000 dollars month.
But the Times said, sums were relatively small compared with Arafat's total holdings. Last year, an audit of Palestinian Authority finances by the International Monetary Fund disclosed that Arafat had diverted 900 million dollars in public funds to a bank account he controlled from 1995 to 2002. Most of the cash, diverted from budget revenues, went to a variety of commercial ventures, the Times said.
Last February, the paper said the French government opened a tax and money-laundering investigation into the deposit of about 11.5 million euros, nearly 15 million dollars at today's rates, into the accounts of Mrs Arafat between July 2002 and July 2003.
To try to bring some transparency and efficiency to the accounts of the Palestinian Authority, the United States and European Union pressed Arafat to appoint a former official of the International Monetary Fund, Salam Fayyad, as finance minister, the Times reported.
Fayyad has made efforts to rationalise spending and to account for international aid, and discovered some 600 million dollars in authority funds invested in about 79 commercial ventures for products including Canadian biopharmaceuticals to Algerian cell phones.
But Fayyad, who, the paper said, has not returned many calls for comment, has in the past acknowledged that he knows only part of the picture.
Many of the sources of the money are now a matter of public record. Money came to the Palestine Liberation Organisation from Arab and other governments, the European Union and international aid agencies, as well as from monopolies on the sale of oil, gas, cement and other goods in the West Bank and Gaza.
Through various financial advisers, Fuad Shubaki, Arafat and the Palestinians made millions of dollars through special export licenses to sell Iraqi oil that were granted by Saddam Hussein, who was sworn to Israel's destruction and valued Arafat's support in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, it quoted a senior Israeli official as saying.
Arafat, the paper said, also granted monopolies to top aides. Shubaki, now in a Palestinian jail in Jericho, had the monopoly for the varied Palestinian security forces, selling food and imported goods.
Jibril Rajoub, Arafat's national security adviser, who ran the security forces on the West Bank, was given a monopoly over oil and gas sales there, while his counterpart in Gaza, Muhammad Dahlan, controlled a market in special permits for passage in and out of Gaza, Israeli and United Nations officials were quoted by the paper as saying.
A ''knowledgeable'' Palestinian official told the Times that he ''could not deny that these kinds of concessions exist.'' Gaza is mostly sand. ''But sand for cement costs more in Gaza than in Israel, and the reason is the cut taken by the Palestinian Authority,'' a senior United Nations aid official told the paper.
There are also protection rackets run by the Palestinian security services there and in the West Bank, he said.














By audit of Palestinian Authority f

Yasser Arafat's Deteriorating




After a week of French hospital officials covering up for Yasser Arafat's deteriorating health, apparently on orders of Suha Arafat, French municipal authorities are now accused of falsifying his Death Certificate. -----French officials falsified Arafat death certificate and suppress its release

Sammy Ghozlan, President of the Jewish Community Council of Seine Saint Denis, near Paris, issued a statement noting that the official announcement of Arafat's death, published in the daily le Parisien on November 12, 2004, lists Arafat's birthplace as Jerusalem. The announcement was, reportedly, based on the death certificate filed the day before in Clamart, the city in which Arafat died.

Arafat, in fact, was born in Cairo, Egypt, as his published birth certificate, his official biography, his Nobel prize biographical statement, and other independent sources attest. Palestinian mythology seeks to suppress this fact and invent the myth that he was not a foreigner but in fact a Jerusalem native.

There are concerns that this falsified official document could be used to substantiate a claim by Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem.

A statement by Ghozlan demands that the French authorities investigate the falsification, to correct the falsehood, and determine who was responsible for the distortion.

The death certificate does not list the cause of death. France is one of the few countries that does not oblige the cause of death to be listed on the death certificate. Some sources speculate that this fact influenced the choice of France as Arafat's final destination.

Some Palestinians, including Hamas Leader Khaled Mashaal, and Arafat's Jordanian doctor, are suggesting that Arafat was poisoned, apparently by Israel, a charge picked up and repeated frequently by Palestinians in recent days. PA Minister Nabil Shaath, while denying that Arafat was poisoned, blamed his death on the poor sanitary condition of Arafat's three year confinement in the Muqata in Ramallah.

Israeli sources suggest that a quiet deal was made in which Israel would not reveal Arafat's HIV/AIDs illness -- reportedly well-known in intelligence circles -- in exchange for Palestinian officials scotching claims of poisoning.

Members of the public and press have asked for copies of the death certificate to be released, but registrars the city of Clamart, apparently contrary to French law, is refusing to issue copies of the certificate.

The French doctor, a general in the French army, was made to read contrived statements about the supposed health of the patient, albeit conveying that the statement was concocted according to the wishes of the family (Suha Arafat) rather than reflecting the medical conclusions of the family.

Eventually Suha Arafat demanded that no further statements be issued. She has taken court action to prevent access of visitors to her husband or release of his medical records, and turned down an offer to release his medical records in exchange for a reported two million dollars.


By accused of falsifying his Death

The Palestine Investment Fund

In August 2002 international donors forced Arafat to sign over his investments to the Palestine Investment Fund, which was audited by U.S. accountants and managed by Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, a former International Monetary Fund official. After scouring corporations throughout the Arab world and bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg, the auditors identified $800 million, which has been made a part of the Palestinian Authority?’s official budget. ?“It?’s the most successful financial reform in the Arab world,?” Jim Prince, president of the Los Angeles?–based Democracy Council and head of the audit team, tells TIME.--------Arafat Skimmed $2 Million a Month From the Gas Trade

People close to Fayyad?’s investigation told TIME of Arafat?’s skimming from the gas trade. Breaking the gasoline smuggling and corruption boosted the Palestinian Authority?’s official treasury by $10 million a month and cut gas prices for ordinary Palestinians.

?“Arafat?’s death means his followers may never know just how much more they may be owed,?” writes TIME?’s Matt Rees in ?“Where?’s Arafat?’s Money??” In the mid-1990s, Arafat controlled a financial empire worth at least $3 billion. By the time of his death, he was down to his last $1 billion, according to Israeli-intelligence estimates.

Arafat wife Suha?’s outburst that his successors were ?“trying to bury [him] alive?” came after she learned that Arafat had signed over at least $800 million to the government of the Palestinian Authority two years ago, TIME reports. Top Palestinian officials say Suha wants the new chief of the P.L.O., Mahmoud Abbas, and Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei to give her money out of the P.L.O.?’s party coffers. But a senior P.L.O. official tells TIME, ?“they?’ll pay her a pension, and that?’s it.?”

People familiar with Arafat?’s finances say the Palestinian leader sent Suha $200,000 a month out of the Palestinian Authority?’s budget for the Office of the President. French authorities are investigating transfers of $15 million from Swiss banks to Paris accounts in Suha?’s name at the Arab Bank and at BNP Paribas Bank, a French bank, TIME reports.

Senior Palestinian security officials tell TIME that Arafat also shipped money to the gunmen of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

By Monetary Fund Official