-Caveat Lector-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000114832908976&rtmo=
wQjAfM0b&atmo=ggggg3JK&pg=/et/99/12/5/wplo05.html
Hackers uncover secret billions of Arafat's PLO
By Tom Gross in Jerusalem
London Sunday Telegraph
5 December 1999
THE Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has salted away billions
of pounds for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in
secret foreign bank accounts and investments, including
property in London.
The disclosure about the hidden wealth of his PLO comes amid
deepening economic hardship in his Gaza and West Bank
fiefdoms. It will also hamper his efforts to woo a huge
influx of European aid for his fledgling Palestinian regime.
The timing of the disclosures could not have been more
embarrassing as Mr Arafat, seated before a stage built to
resemble a giant Christmas crib, yesterday opened Millennium
celebrations in Bethlehem. He hopes that the year of
festivities in Jesus's birthplace will showcase his push for
an independent Palestinian state.
New details of the vast PLO fortune he controls have come to
light following a series of computer break-ins at the
headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in
Tunis.
The hackers discovered that the PLO maintains about £5
billion in numbered bank accounts in Zurich, Geneva and New
York. It also holds accounts with smaller sums in north
Africa, Europe and Asia. They are not registered in the PLO's
name, but in the names of private individuals.
The records also showed that the PLO owns shares on the
Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo stock exchanges, including stock
in the German car giant Mercedes Benz, and property in
prestigious areas of European capitals, including Mayfair in
London.
The organisation, which once specialised in aircraft
hijackings, also has shares in several airlines, including
the national carriers of the Maldives and Guinea Bissau. The
computer security breach is believed on the West Bank to have
been carried out by PLO officials disgruntled with Mr
Arafat's leadership. "They wished to dispel the smokescreen
created around the PLO's finances," a Palestinian official
told The Telegraph.
Mr Arafat has always refused to comment on reports about the
foreign bank accounts. But the disclosures caused anger in
poverty-stricken Gaza. One embittered Palestinian said: "Why
is he sitting on a mountain of gold, while there is a
desperate lack of jobs and medical supplies here?"
Mr Arafat is both president of the Palestinian Authority, the
semi-autonomous organisation that governs parts of Gaza and
the West Bank, and the chairman of the PLO, which maintains
its headquarters in Tunis, its base during its terrorist
heyday.
The creation of the Palestinian Authority, the embryonic
government for a future Palestinian state, was supposed to
lead to the winding-up of the PLO - and make the Palestinian
leadership accountable and law-abiding. But the authority has
in fact been repeatedly accused by domestic opponents of
rampant corruption and mismanagement.
The web of secret bank accounts and assets held around the
world is believed to be so complex that only Mr Arafat
himself and two of his most trusted aides know the overall
picture. Much of the money is the result of "taxes" levied on
Palestinians working in Kuwait and other Gulf states in the
Seventies and Eighties, and of donations from wealthy states
such as Saudi Arabia.
The assets are controlled by Mr Arafat himself and it is not
known what would happen to them if the 70-year-old, who is
said to be suffering from Parkinson's disease, should die. An
Israeli intelligence analyst said: "These revelations are
almost certainly not the whole story. No one can know the
full extent of the PLO's assets. They are so well hidden."
The disclosures are also likely to prompt international
donors, including the European Union countries, to ask why Mr
Arafat is still demanding aid for his Palestinian authority.
Nor will they have been impressed by his decision to invite
Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslavia's president, to Bethlehem.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 1999.
Forwarded with no endorsement implied--
for education, research and discussion.
*** NOTICE: Per Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest, for Fair Use research and educational purposes, only.
*** Ref: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ****
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