Ramallah- PA prisoners’ affairs minister Wasfi Kabaha has blatantly accused the “coup trend” within Fatah faction of “poisoning” the Palestinian arena with wrong statements they uttered on the media with the aim to derail the formation of a unity government.
Kabaha’s remarks were spurred by statements of Fatah MP Esa Qaraqi accusing the ministry of favoritism and of paying bails and penalties for jailed PA ministers only which Kabaha categorically denied.
“It seems that there is a group of certain figures within Fatah faction attempting to derail the formation of the PA unity government at all cost because success of this government have gone beyond their imaginations” the minister underlined.
In this regard Kabaha dared MP Qaraqi to substantiate his allegations asserting “The ministry hadn’t paid a single penny in bail money for the release of [PA public works] minister Mohammed Al-Barghouthi; and therefore Qaraqi should differentiate between penalty and bail as they are totally two different things”.
He explained that the ministry helps families of Palestinian inmates whether ordinary inmates or ministers in case the Israeli prisons authority imposed penalties on them.
But he added when it comes to bail the ministry considers the money paid for that “retrievable” and could be collected any time and return to the ministry which according to him made it different than penalty.
“Qaraqi knows for himself that the current PA government is the most transparent PA government ever as we have all the records on expenditure and have the records on the ministry’s money wasted prior to the current government” Kabaha pointed out.
Talking on the prisoners’ swap issue Kabaha unveiled that Israeli occupation government was derailing the conclusion of the swap deal adding that demands set forth by captors of IOF serviceman Gilad Shalit were human demands and very clear.
He also explained that the PA government wasn’t asking for the inclusion of the kidnapped PA ministers and lawmakers in any swap deal in answer to their own appeal to exclude them of any swap deal as they believe that they should be released without any condition being elected officials of the Palestinian people and protected by their status.
In a related matter Palestinian inmates in the Beer Sheba prison urged Kabaha to include improving prisoners’ incarceration conditions in Israeli jails as condition on any swap deal with the Israelis.
Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails were incarcerated in harsh imprisonment conditions and subjected to frequent humiliation at the hands of their jailors as testified by numbers of human rights lawyers visiting those captives.
