Arafat probably poisoned, say Swiss scientists
Swiss forensics examiners found sufficient traces of the deadly radioactive isotope polonium-210 in the exhumed remains of Yasser Arafat to conclude with relative certainty that the late Palestinian leader died of poisoning in 2004, Al Jazeera news channel reported Wednesday.
The Qatar-based channel said it had obtained exclusive access to the 108page report by the University Center of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, which Al Jazeera posted on its website.
Examination of bone fragments, decomposed tissue and body fluids taken from Arafat’s remains at his West Bank tomb a year ago found at least 18 times the normal level of polonium, the scientists reported.
The Swiss team was one of three given forensic material for investigation after Arafat’s widow, Suha, gave Al Jazeera access to Arafat’s personal effects and medical records in 2011 in the hope of determining the cause of his death, the network said. Results of the two other inquiries, by Russian and French experts, have yet to be reported.
Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004, at 75, less than a month after falling ill with what doctors thought was influenza. But the vomiting, nausea and abdominal pain that he complained of are also symptoms of radiation poisoning, which was littleknown before it was used to kill KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006, Al Jazeera noted.
Its report on the Swiss findings quoted renowned British forensic scientist Dave Barclay as saying he was “wholly convinced that Arafat was murdered.”
“Yasser Arafat died of polonium poisoning,” Barclay said he concluded from the Swiss findings. “We found the smoking gun that caused his death. What we don’t know is who’s holding the gun at the time.”
No cause of death was announced, nor was an autopsy performed, by doctors in Paris, where Arafat was airlifted from the West Bank and spent his last days in a coma. It was only after the Litvinenko case came to light that pressure built for French judicial authorities to open a formal inquiry on whether the Palestine Liberation Organization founder might have been killed.