Keeping it all in the family. Our first question is: What Mahmood Abbas knew and when he knew it?
French probe links PLO treasurer to payments to Arafat's wife :
[World News] Washington, Apr 20 : French investigators probing embezzlement of Palestinian Liberation Organization's funds have said its Treasurer was the pointman for $7 million paid to Yasser Arafat's wife Suha Arafat through a Paris bank account, a report said today.
Nizar Abu Ghazaleh, head of PLO finances, played a key role in the transfers to Suha, according to Palestinian officials and Paris judicial officials probing PLO funds, The Wall Street Journal reported from Ramallah, West Bank.
Palestinian officials familiar with the transactions said the PLO controlled a bank account in Tunisia that was the source of millions of dollars of unexplained payments to Mrs Arafat, it said.
Officials in the new Palestinian government suspect that millions of dollars transferred to her are connected to contracts issued by the Palestinian Authority under Arafat prior to his death last year.
They believe these contracts had the effect of moving its funds to the PLO at a time when the governing authority was strapped for cash.
The Palestinian Authority and PLO, both Arafat had headed, are legally two distinct organizations. Ghazaleh also was chairman of Al Bahr, a business carrying out purchases for the Palestinian Authority, and Suha played a major unofficial role at the company by helping to broker purchases, the Palestinian officials said.
Ghazaleh, who died last week, was signatory to the account controlled by the PLO's Palestinian National Fund and ordered millions of dollars transferred to Suha Arafat's personal account in Paris from 2002 to 2003, said Palestinian officials familiar with the transactions. PTI [link]
Our second question is: can Suha Arafat pitch?
posted by: jrtelegraph
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