Palestinian president fires aide over scandal surrounding sex tape

Palestinian president fires aide over sex scandal

RAMALLAH, West Bank — A top aide to the Palestinian president says the chief of staff has been fired for involvement in a sex scandal.

Rafiq Natche said Wednesday that President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed his chief of staff Rafiq Husseini after he admitted to being videotaped taking off his clothes and getting into a woman’s bed.

The tape, broadcast on Israeli TV in early February, sent shockwaves through conservative Palestinian society.

Natche also says Husseini was a victim of entrapment. The tape was shot by a Palestinian intelligence official exposing a sex-for-favors racket.

Natche says Abbas also decreed that Palestinian intelligence services should not violate people’s privacy, a protective move against future such scandals.