Palestinian adviser reveals stash fund

Former Yasser Arafat adviser Mohammed Rashid has revealed that Fatah has a secret bank account in Jordan containing $39 million. Rashid told The Jerusalem Post Saturday he has documents to prove his claims and added that the original sum of money in the bank account was $44 million, but the Fatah leadership spent $5 million on the sixth annual conference in 2009. "According to my documents, $13 million came from the United States, while the remaining sum came from friendly Arab countries," Rashid said. A Palestinian Authority court in Ramallah last week sentenced Rashid in absentia to 15 years in prison and a $15 million fine on charges of embezzlement and money laundering, The Post said. Rashid was prosecuted after he appeared on the al-Arabiya network and criticized the Palestinian leadership and threatened to expose corruption scandals involving President Mahmoud Abbas and his two sons, the daily said. Rashid, an Iraqi Kurd, worked with Arafat for more than a decade and left the Palestinian territories after Arafat's death in November 2004, al-Arabiya said.