Lebanon arrests former Palestinian envoy to face PA graft charges

Lebanese authorities arrested the former Palestinian ambassador to Beirut on Monday ahead of his extradition to face corruption charges back home, a Lebanese judicial official told AFP.

Lebanon’s public prosecutor “issued an arrest warrant for former Palestinian ambassador Ashraf Dabbour on Monday after questioning him,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The official added that the judiciary “transferred the file to the government to inform the Palestinian Authority that Dabbour is detained in Lebanon, and requested that his judicial file be sent to Lebanon… in preparation for handing him over” to the PA.

Dabbour, ambassador to Beirut from 2012 to 2025, was previously arrested upon arriving at the country’s airport in April at the request of the PA, over charges of corruption and embezzlement of funds during his tenure in Lebanon.

He was then placed under a travel ban.

In a video posted on his Facebook page in May, Dabbour denied the accusations, saying they aimed to tarnish his reputation.

In an April Facebook post, Dabbour accused Yasser Abbas, the son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of “exploiting his control over the security services and his influence within the authority to use them to settle his personal scores… by pursuing me with arrest warrants from one place to another.”

The Palestinian Authority has vowed to undergo a series of radical reforms after US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace outline laid out a plan under which the PA would take control of the Strip after undergoing an unspecified “reform program.”

Within the pockets of the West Bank that it administers, the PA is notorious for corruption. Critics say the system lined the pockets of elites with tax proceeds and international aid, while funneling much of what was left to a massive security apparatus trained to crack down on dissent at the behest of its patrons.

In a high-profile move against corruption, the PA transport minister was removed in October and put under investigation on allegations of bribery, according to local media.

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