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EU wants to question Palestinian prisoners about PA funds
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

The European Union wants to send investigators to Israel to interview
Palestinians in Israeli prisons about the Palestinian Authority's use
of European donations to fund terrorism.

The EU fraud investigation agency (OLAF) opened an investigation at
the end of last year after a unanimous demand from the European
Parliament for a probe of allegations that PA chairman Yasser Arafat
and senior officials transferred EU funds to Fatah's military wing,
the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

Parliamentarians requested an open investigation, but a classified one
by OLAF was ultimately decided upon. OLAF officials visited Israel at
the beginning of 2004 and reviewed documents and testimony presented
by the IDF and Shin Bet security service.

Some of those documents were seized during the IDF raid on Arafat's
Muqata compound in Ramallah during Operation Defensive Shield in April
2002. After examining the material, investigators determined it was
authentic.

Now they want to substantiate the allegations from the testimony of Al
Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades members who are in custody in Israel. A request
to interview them was recently submitted to the National Security
Council's anti-terror headquarters.

Israel has an interest in eliciting an EU confirmation of its own
suspicions so it will most likely allow the interviews.

In the past, prisoners from Fatah have told reporters they got
financial support from the PA and that in certain periods they even
got instructions from senior PA security service officials on carrying
out attacks.

In the past decade, the EU has transfered about 1.5 billion euros to
the PA. European support for the PA is currently around 10 million
euros a month. A report by the International Monetary Fund last year
said senior Palestinian officials had funneled close to $900 million
in PA funds from donor countries and from profits from PA monopolies
in the territories into overseas bank accounts.

One of the main beneficiaries is Arafat's wife, Suha Arafat, who lives
in Paris - an issue that has come under investigation recently in
France.

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