NYPost

HE'S BILLION-DOLLAR ARAFAT By URI DAN

August 14, 2002 -- JERUSALEM - Yasser Arafat has secretly amassed at least $1.3 billion in "personal assets," Israel's chief of military intelligence said yesterday.

Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi's comments were based on financial documents and other evidence confiscated earlier this year from the PLO chairman's headquarters in Ramallah and other Palestinian Authority offices in the West Bank.

Zeevi gave few details about Arafat's fortune in his regular monthly briefing before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense committees.

But a high-ranking Israeli official said the confirmed $1.3 billion is believed to be only a fraction of Arafat's true holdings.

A 1994 British intelligence report allegedly put the figure at more than $10 billion. Recently, a knowledgeable Israeli source put the figure at $11 billion.

According to documents and other evidence:

* Arafat's wealth is held in bank accounts, real estate and other assets that can easily be made liquid.

* The bank accounts are spread about in Europe, Arab countries, the Far East - and even the United States - under different companies controlled by Arafat.

* Arafat has made some of his top deputies, including Abu Ala, Abu Mazen and Nabil Shaath, very rich.

"Arafat took care of his closest aides. Some of them have tens of millions of dollars," one source said.

Arafat's wife Suha, who has been living in Paris during the Palestinian uprising, is believed to control some of his hidden assets.

The financial guru who controls Arafat's personal fortune is Mohammed Rashid, an Arafat loyalist of Kurdish origin.

The intricate network of numbered bank accounts and hidden assets is believed to be so complex that only Arafat, Rashid and one or two other Palestinians know their extent.

The main source of Arafat's wealth is believed to be the approximately $6 billion contributed by the United States, Japan and European countries as financial aid to the authority from 1993 to 2000, sources said.

Despite a cutback in aid during the 23-month-old Palestinian uprising, the European Union continues to contribute about $10 million a month to finance what Arafat calls the needed operations of the authority.

"The Palestinian people's money is Arafat's personal money," a high-ranking Israeli official said. "That's the way he treats it. Everything belongs to him."

Reports of Arafat's wealth - including claims that the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership owns property in London's Mayfair district, a large stock holding in Mercedes Benz and other assets - have circulated in the last few years.

Israel has claimed the documents captured from Arafat's offices in the West Bank show that Western aid is being funneled to the families of bombers.

According to intelligence reports, Arafat has used his position as Palestinian president as well as his chairmanship of the PLO to build his bankroll.

Well before he returned to the Gaza Strip and West Bank as president in 1994, Arafat was receiving huge contributions from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf to finance the PLO.

In addition to aid from governments, Arafat's inner circle is believed to have received millions of dollars in business graft based on imports of valued goods.

"The kickbacks work this way," a top Israeli official said:

"A group of Palestinians gets a monopoly on gasoline or cigarettes or cement or something. The Palestinian consumer then pays an inflated price for his gas, because the price includes a special fee that goes in the hands of Arafat's people."

Zeevi told the parliamentary committees that criticism of Arafat is mounting, both among the Palestinian public and within Fatah, his own political organization.

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2002