Omar Yussef is a fictional character and the hero of a series of crime novels by Welsh writer Matt Rees.
It was at University that he met Khamis Zeydan, a young Palestinian nationalist and a refugee from the coastal town of Jaffa, who later became police chief in Bethlehem.
Omar later said the charges were false and that he had been jailed by political opponents eager to smear him (A Grave in Gaza, Soho Crime, New York, February 2008).
Omar took a job at the United Nations Relief and Works Basic School for Girls in Dehaisha camp.
The job was a step down in prestige from the Freres School, but it drew Omar into closer contact with the poorest refugees of Bethlehem and alerted him to their sufferings.
The second Omar Yussef novel is A Grave in Gaza (published in the UK as The Saladin Murders by Atlantic Books in January 2008).
The third, The Samaritan's Secret, set in Nablus, was published in the UK by Atlantic Books and in the US by SoHo Press in February 2009.