Picking over the still-warm corpse

He ain't dead yet but the vultures are starting to gather... From Stefan Sharkansky's Shark Blog comes this news item about palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the gentle loving people who surround him. bq. Billionaire Terrorist Probate Fight Billionaire Terrorist Yassir Arafat isn't dead yet, but the probate fight over his massive fortune is already underway:

sources close to the Palestinian leadership said a bitter fight had broken over who should control the ailing leader�s fortune estimated to be between $4.2 billion and $6.5 billion.

Sources said Arafat has written a will transferring control of his assets to members of his wife�s family. Some of his aides, including former Premier Mahmoud Abbas who has stepped in as interim leader, however, believe the fortune belongs to the �beit al-mal� (public treasury), and should be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. The controversy started last week when Suha, Arafat�s wife, asked Muhammad Rashid, Arafat�s confidant and adviser, to prepare a list of the ailing leader�s fortune. According to Palestinian sources Rashid has said he would furnish the list only to the Palestinian Authority.

Identifying Arafat�s personal fortune and separating it from numerous secret bank accounts that he maintains in the name of the Palestine Liberation Orgaization and Al-Fatah is no easy task.

And some examples of Arafat's fortunes:

Arafat also owns a number of hotels and holiday resorts in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, and Austria. He is the main shareholder in two cellular telephone companies operating in Tunisia and Algeria.

Some of Arafat�s businesses are in partnership with Arab politicians, former officials and entrepreneurs, including Rifaat Assad, a brother of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, and Barzan Al-Takriti, a half-brother of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Al-Takriti is now under arrest in Baghdad.

Emphasis mine - no big surprise there really... Couldn't be happening to a nicer guy -- Here is hoping that Iblis has something special for him when he shows up long overdue in hell. It must be fun now for him too -- being out of the 'center of power' and knowing that all his authority is being stolen away by his rivals bit by bit, piece by piece and there is nothing that he can do about it...