Palestinian president suspends chief of staff over sex scandal

The WAFA agency said President Mahmoud Abbas had ordered an investigation into the case of Rafik al-Husseini. The inquiry is due to report to Abbas in three weeks.

Last week, Israel's Channel 10 broadcast a report based on hidden-camera footage and interviews with a former Palestinian intelligence officer who alleged that Husseini had offered a woman employment in exchange for sex.

Fahmy Shabaneh, the former intelligence officer, told Channel 10 he had wanted to expose the case but complained nothing had been done as a result.

Husseini, reading a statement to journalists in Ramallah, said he had been ambushed by a gang that worked for "Israeli intelligence." The tape was more than a year and a half old and had been dubbed, he added.

In the footage as broadcast, Husseini is asked by the woman for his opinion on Abbas. "He doesn't like the people and the people don't like him," replied Husseini.

Shabaneh also said he had evidence of financial corruption by senior officials in the Palestinian Authority, which receives hundreds of millions of dollars of Western donor funding each year.