Arafat 'ran $1.5bn network'
2004-11-20 19:33
Vienna - The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat controlled a network of companies, investments and bank accounts with a value totalling at least $1.5bn, according to the Austrian business magazine Format.
Quoting a Central Intelligence Agency report, it said the CIA had conducted enquiries after receiving information that a holding company of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) had invested $9m in a small pharmaceutical company in the Canadian town of Belleville, Ontario.
Format said investigators had "stepped on an anthill" when they uncovered the stake held by the Palestinian Commercial Service Corporation (PCSC) in Bioniche Life Sciences, revealing a whole network of PLO funds such as Chalcedony, Onyx, Evergreen, SilverHaze and Avmax International, the last based in Aruba in the Caribbean.
The weekly said it had seen a file "detailing in concrete terms for the first time how much money was involved".
One component of the financial network alleged to have been run by Arafat, who died near Paris on November 11, indicated that Austrian interests had been involved.
Format said that, from 1998 to the Palestinian uprising of 2000, the Austrian bank Bawag and a group called Casino Austria had financed a gambling casino much frequented by Israelis at Jericho on the West Bank.
It said Bawag had later financed Arafat's private jet, a Challenger 604 make worth $23m registered in Austria.
Format also alleged that Arafat had control over $800m in bank accounts in Austria, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
- AFP