Sex-tape scandal rocks Palestinian leadership

Palestinian officials today rallied round a top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after a video surfaced showing him in an alleged attempt to trade his influence for sex.

The footage of Rafiq Husseini, shot by a former Palestinian intelligence officer, has caused uproar in conservative Palestinian society.

In the video, broadcast by Israeli TV earlier this week, Mr Husseini is shown undressing in a bedroom and calling out to an unseen woman, heard speaking off camera, to join him.

“Do I turn off the light or do you? What is the procedure?” he is heard asking the woman.

The former Palestinian intelligence officer, Fahmi Shabaneh, said he secretly took the footage in collusion with the unidentified woman. He said the woman had complained to him that Mr Husseini was making suggestive remarks when she went to his office to ask for help with a family problem.

Mr Shabaneh said he then installed cameras in the woman’s bedroom and filmed Mr Husseini’s next encounter with the woman.

The video was first broadcast by Israel’s Channel 10 TV on Wednesday, and Mr Husseini has declined to comment so far.

Mr Abbas, who is traveling in the Far East, has not commented. He is due back in the West Bank on Monday.

The independent West Bank-based Maan news agency urged Mr Husseini in an editorial to step down pending an investigation, arguing that he could no longer carry out his job effectively.

“This is embarrassing to the Palestinian Authority, this is embarrassing to our people, this is embarrassing to our families,” Maan editor-in-chief Nasser Laham said in an interview.

But he also portrayed the Abbas aide as a victim of a smear campaign, calling Israeli TV’s airing of the footage “a lynching”.

Mr Abbas’a Fatah movement said it would “not allow anyone to use his position to serve his personal agenda and fantasies” and that it would look into the matter, but stopped short of announcing an investigation.

Spokesman Nimr Hamad said Mr Husseini would remain in his post for now.

Palestinian officials claimed that the video was part of an attempt by Israel to discredit Mr Abbas and his government and denounced Mr Shabaneh as a collabourator with Israel.

The allegations come at a time of deadlock in US attempts to renew Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.