RAMALLAH, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES // A Palestinian court dismissed a high-profile corruption case against exiled Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan on Sunday, a defence lawyer said.
The Ramallah-based corruption court had ruled that the charges against Dahlan – once a leading figure in Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party – were “inadmissable”, said the lawyer Sevag Torossian who hailed the move as “a great victory”.
The court ruled that a 2012 decision to lift Dahlan’s parliamentary immunity had not been carried out in line with parliamentary law.
The lifting of immunity had paved the way for another case in May 2014 in which he was convicted in absentia of defamation and sentenced to two years in prison.
His immunity was lifted by presidential decree in 2012, but by law, it can only be removed after a parliamentary vote.
However, the Palestinian parliament has not convened since a 2007 political crisis when the militant movement Hamas expelled its Fatah rival from the Gaza Strip.
Last month, the Palestinian high court had upheld the decree, rejecting an appeal by Dahlan.
The current case was in connection with the alleged misuse of US$17 million (Dh62.44m) in expenses, his legal team said, describing the trial as a “farce”.
His legal team said it would try to have last year’s conviction overturned on the same grounds. That ruling effectively barred Dahlan’s from returning to the West Bank for fear of imprisonment.
Dahlan’s lawyers have long accused the Palestinian leadership, with president Abbas at its head, of using the courts “for purely political ends”.
Once a leading Fatah figure who headed Gaza’s powerful security apparatus, Dahlan fell from grace in June 2007 after the humiliating rout of his forces by Hamas which saw the group expel Fatah from the coastal enclave.
He returned to the political stage in 2009, but two years later was expelled from Fatah over allegations of financial corruption and murder.
* Agence France-Presse
