Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday suspended his chief aide, who in turn accused Israel and a PA official of collaborating to fabricate evidence and charges of a sex scandal and widespread corruption. Rafiq Husseini said he would cooperate with a PA committee investigating charges that he exploited his position to exercise his influence in exchange for sexual favors.
The source of the charges is former PA intelligence officer, Fahmi Shabeneh, who has publicly said that corruption is rampant within the PA, a scenario generally accepted but seldom proven or spoken about publicly.
Shabeneh two years ago taped Husseini in bed with a woman, and Channel 10 television recently showed the video, which Husseini charges was heavily edited.
"I was ambushed by a gang that works for Israeli intelligence," Husseini told a press conference Sunday. "This gang used the tape to blackmail me financially and politically, which means that I [should] abandon my work in Jerusalem and leave the homeland. I did not submit to it."
Shabaneh, who has freely stated that he may be assassinated by the PA for his public disclosures, also has claimed he has documents proving corruption, but he has not yet disclosed them except for some general descriptions that Channel 10 says it obtained.
Abbas heads the Fatah party and was elected five years ago to succeed Yasser Arafat, whose corruption was widely documented and was one of the factors that catapulted Hamas into winning the legislative elections.