PA Whistle-blower faces death sentence
In a follow-up to this mornings post on corruption within the Palestinian Authority, an arrest warrant has now been issued for Fahmi Shabaneh. Jerusalem Post
The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant against former top PA anti-corruption official Fahmi Shabaneh, ironically, on charges of corruption and undermining the PA.
It comes a day after Shabaneh issued an ultimatum to PA President Mahmoud Abbas to remove the corrupt officials in the Palestinian leader’s office within two weeks or he will expose more cases of corruption that “would seriously embarrass the PA and even harm its relations with Arab and Muslim countries as well as donors.”
Wednesday’s arrest warrant was signed by the PA prosecutor general, who also accused Shabaneh of involvement in selling land to Jews. However, Shabaneh is a resident of Jerusalem, where the PA does not have the power to make arrests.
You make think Shabaneh is safe as long as he does not leave East Jerusalem but he does risk being kidnapped by Fatah officials and kidnapping is not out of the realm of a Palestinian security officials job description.
If Shabaneh is turned over to the Palestinian Authority he faces an automatic death sentence if convicted by a PA military court for ’selling land to Jews’. This racist law is considered a capital criminal offence of the highest order within the Palestinian Authority. Nor would Shabaneh be the first to suffer that fate. Shabaneh has only one faint hope – if enough people in the international community take up his cause the Palestinian Authority might be persuaded it is within their best interests not to try him on trumped up charges. So who is up for the challenge?
