By the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an independent,
non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle
East.
On June 7, 2002, the Kuwaiti Al-Watan daily published the following
report (www.alwatan.com.kw/first.asp?id=75797):
“Yesterday, Al-Watan received documents from private sources in the Cairo
branch of an Arab bank showing that Yasser Arafat had deposited in his name
$5.1 million into a personal account. According to sources, this is theft of Arab
aid funds allocated to the Palestinians through an arrangement between Arafat
and his Cairo office head Ramzi Khouri.”
“The sources added that according to the documents, these funds were
deposited in the personal accounts of President Arafat to cover some of the
president’s personal expenses, including the costs of his wife Suha and their
daughter who live in Paris and Switzerland.”
“The sources added that nobody knows of this theft, with the exception of
some of Arafat’s closest cronies, including his Cairo office head Ramzi Khouri
and Khaled Slam, originally from Iraq, whose real name is Muhammad Rashid
and who is one of Arafat’s top ‘and most influential’ advisors.”
“The sources added that some weeks ago Muhammad Rashid had bought, on
Arafat’s instructions, 14% of the shares of the Jordanian Cement Company for
the PSCS (Palestine Commercial Services Company) with funds received by
Arafat from the Arab Gulf states, ’to increase the profits of Arafat’s
investments abroad,’ in light of the increase in cement prices following
increased demand due to the reconstruction of what the Israeli forces destroyed
in their recent incursion into the West Bank cities.”
“The sources added that the funds that reached the Palestinian Authority from
Kuwait and the other Gulf states for the Committee for the
Reconstruction of Hebron Homes, destroyed by Israeli bulldozers during the Intifada, did not reach the
people entitled to them. Rather, they were distributed to the PA leaders close to
Arafat and to several top officials of the Fatah movement, headed by Arafat.”
“The sources added that the citizens entitled to these funds appealed to the
head of the committee, a Hebronite from the Al-Qawasmeh family, but received
nothing.”
“The sources added that most of the food aid sent to the PA was sold in
Palestinian and Israeli markets without being distributed to the poor and needy,
and the latter began to shout ‘at the top of their lungs’ that a popular
committee must be established for aid distribution, since they had lost all faith
in the PA and its apparatuses.”
“Al-Watan adds to this news item photos of the documents received from its
Cairo sources regarding the deposit of U.S. $5.1 million by Arafat into his
personal account in the Arab Bank in Cairo.”
