Palestinian Authority court in Ramallah sentenced a former deputy undersecretary of the Interior Ministry to seven years in prison on Tuesday.
In addition to the former undersecretary, Muhammad Abdul-Latif Abu Hajja, the court also convicted his wife, Samira Arif Turkiyya, and son, Ayman, to seven years imprisonment and penal servitude, along with a fine of 375,000 US dollars.
According to Salim Jarrar, general persecutor for corruption and economic crimes, the case was referred to court by general prosecution on 9 September 2006, and the charges were embezzlement, forgery, using forged documents, and establishing an illegal society.
He pointed out that the verdict came to crown efforts by the general prosecution’s department of fighting corruption and economic crimes. He said that corruption crimes are of special nature, and that they take a longer time to investigate. Collecting evidence is also very difficult, he added, as suspects tend to be rather powerful people who can easily hide evidence. They also tend to try to mislead prosecution, he added.
Jarrar went on to say that “there have been several corruption cases followed up by the corruption-fighting prosecution. In 2008, there were eight lawsuits, and surprisingly in all of them, the suspects were found guilty.”
He highlighted that corruption-fighting prosecution "is currently investigating 36 corruption cases," asserting that investigation in such cases goes on secretly, and is revealed to the media only after it is complete.
With regard to the details of Tuesday's case, Jarrar said, "Abu Hijja, the convict, was in charge of NGOs. According to Palestinian law, when NGOs are dissolute, all their properties and money are reserved until it can be delivered to other NGOs. By the virtue of his post, he learned that the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) was dissolute, and its money was reserved."
"The convict established an illusionary charity which he named 'Citizen Protection.' He appointed his wife as chair of the charity, and his son as treasurer. Then he forged documents and used his authority to transfer all the money that belonged to ANHRI to the illusionary charity’s account at the Islamic Bank. The wife then withdrew the money which was 375 thousand US dollars, and they left the country," he said.
“When general prosecution began investigating the case, there was an application to get them back to the country, and a judgment in absentia was issued. We will try to contact the country where he is, and initial information we have says he is in Jordan,” Jarrar added.
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