Tunisia issues arrest warrant against Yasser Arafat's widow

A Tunisian court has issued an international arrest warrant against the widow of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat over alleged corruption, a justice official said today.

Justice ministry spokesman Kadhem Zine el Abidine told AFP that a Tunis court had issued the warrant against 48-year-old Suha Arafat, who was stripped of her Tunisian citizenship in 2007 and currently lives in Malta.

He gave no reason for the move. According to Tunisian papers, Suha Arafat is wanted over alleged corruption dating to the spring of 2007, when she founded the Carthage International School in Tunis with the country's much-vilified former first lady Leila Trabelsi.

The two women then fell out, purportedly over Suha Arafat's criticism of an alleged move by Trabelsi to close down another private school that would have been in direct competition with their joint venture.

According to a US diplomatic cable revealed by the WikiLeaks, Arafat met the then US ambassador after the dispute and lashed out at the ruling family.

She said that now ousted dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali would spend all day in his residence running after his young son and "simply does what his wife asks him to do".

Suha Arafat was subsequently declared persona non grata, stripped of her Tunisian nationality in 2007, less than a year after acquiring it, and expelled. She settled in Malta, where her brother served as Palestinian ambassador.

In a telephone interview Saturday with the London-based Arab daily Al Qods, Arafat said she no longer had any link with the Carthage International School. "I gave up this school to Asma Mahjoub, the niece of Leila Ben Ali," she said.

Born into a well-to-do Christian Palestinian family, Suha Arafat married the historic leader in 1990.