Abbas fires his finance minister over illicit payments to Palestinian prisoners — sources
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ousted his finance minister on Monday for allowing payments to Palestinian security prisoners through an old mechanism that awarded them based on the length of their sentence, a Palestinian official and a second source familiar with the matter revealed to The Times of Israel.
Abbas’s office announced earlier Monday that PA Planning and International Cooperation Minister Estephan Salameh had replaced Omar Bitar as finance minister through the PA’s official Wafa news outlet, but did not provide a reason for the cabinet shuffle.
The two sources told The Times of Israel that Bitar’s dismissal followed an internal investigation revealing that he had authorized payments to some Palestinian security prisoners outside the new system that the PA establi...










