Special to WorldTribune.com

RAMALLAH — The Palestinian Authority has detained another critic of chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Mohammed Al Sabawi, a leading investor, was arrested in Ramallah on Dec. 2 and held for eight hours on charges of insulting Abbas.

Al Sabawi, the 68-year-old director-general of the Ahlia Insurance Group, has protested corruption within the PA.

“I think he hurt Mahmoud Abbas’s feelings,” Al Sabawi’s son, Khaled, said.

A PA unit was said to have raided the Ahlia office building and arrested
Al Sabawi and his son. Two weeks earlier, the elder Al Sabawi called for
Abbas to step down after nine years in power.

Al Sabawi, also a Canadian citizen, was the latest dissident arrested by
the PA in recent weeks. Others in detention or under attack included
journalists, human rights activists and Fatah operatives.

Khaled said his father sought to end high-level corruption that discouraged investment in the PA. He dismissed a U.S. plan to invest $4 billion in the West Bank as “nonsense.

“Come and invest in the PA areas, but if you don’t bribe their corrupt
officials, the PA will arrest you,” Khaled said. “This is a desperate
political arrest by an undemocratic Palestinian Authority president who has
no credibility amongst his people.”

  Ahlia Insurance Group, Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Al Sabawi, Palestinian Authority raids office of critic who ‘hurt Abbas’s feelings’, Ramallah