RAMALLAH, June 30, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Procrastination in handling many corruption cases, some involving high-level Palestinian officials, has triggered a political storm in the Palestinian territories, especially after President Mahmoud Abbas weighed in.

"President Abbas has asked the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC)'s Monitoring, Human Rights and Public Freedoms Committee and other bodies to question the prosecutor general over delays in handling corruption cases," Gamal Al-Shatti, the committee's chairman, told IslamOnline.net.

"Frankly, we want to know if there are pressures or a political decision to put such cases on the backburner."

The prosecutor general, Hussein Abu Asi, only acted on cases involving low-level officials while "tycoon" and "big sharks" are not held accountable, said Al-Shatti.

Mohamed Al-Madani, a leading Fatah member, said Abbas issued a presidential decree forming a special committee to investigate all corruption cases.

"The committee will go soon on a foreign tour to compile data on some of these corruption cases," he told IOL.

Last April, President Abbas referred four major corruption cases involving senior Palestinian officials to the prosecutor general for investigation.

Abu Safia accused the prosecutor general and supreme court of allowing importation of harming Israeli materials.

Al-Shatti cited as a case in point the closure, based on insufficient evidence, of a case involving cement imported from Egypt last year by a Palestinian company owned by a relative of a senior Palestinian official.

The imported cement found its way into the Israeli market and was even used in the construction of Israel's separation wall.

"True, we found no hard evidence that the imported cement was used in building the controversial wall but we have evidence it was sold on the Israeli market which is in itself a crime," said the senior legislator.

"This not only harms Palestinian national interests but also tarnish our image," he added.

Dr. Yussuf Abu Safia, the chairman of the Environmental Authority, also charged the prosecutor general and the supreme court of allowing harming Israeli materials into the Palestinian territories.

They violated a 1997 law by allowing the importation of 2,500 used Israeli computer monitors into the Gaza Strip, he said.

Abu Safia said his authority had refused to authorize the deal but the prosecutor general and the supreme court did.

The Palestinian official earlier told IOL that Israel was flooding the Palestinian market with carcinogenic food and fruit.

The charges, however, were vehemently denied by the Palestinian prosecutor general.

"There are no pending corruption cases but rather thousands of verdicts awaiting enforcement," Abu Asi told IOL.

Commenting on the controversial cement case, he said it was "a closed case", adding there was no reason to reignite the controversy.

The prosecutor general defended the public prosecution and the judicial system, saying they are suffering from the "security chaos" gripping the Palestinian territories since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000.

On June 28, Abu Asi issued arrest warrants for former Palestinian Authority officials on charges of mishandling of public money.