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YASSER ARAFAT

Arafat’s widow ‘shattered’ over French findings

Yasser Arafat's widow said on Tuesday that she was "shattered" by contradictory findings by French and Swiss experts over the cause of the former Palestinian leader's death.

Published: 4 December 2013 09:56 CET
Arafat's widow 'shattered' over French findings
Photo: World Economic Forum

"I am so shattered by these contradictions," said Suha Arafat after French experts ruled out a theory her husband had been poisoned.

"What are we supposed to think?"

She added that she did not blame anyone for his death.

Earlier this year, scientists in Lausanne said they could not rule out that Arafat was poisoned after finding elevated levels of radioactive substance polonium-210 on his remains.

However, they cautioned they could not prove the cause of his death.

The French investigation concluded that tests showed an "absence of poisoning" because of a lack of evidence "proving polonium-210 poisoning."

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YASSER ARAFAT

Analysing Arafat’s remains to take time

Around 60 samples were taken from the remains of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for a probe into whether he was poisoned by polonium, a Swiss newspaper reported on Sunday, quoting a lead investigator.

Published: 2 December 2012 17:30 CET
Analysing Arafat's remains to take time
The late Yasser Arafat in Davos, Switzerland in 2009 (Photo: World Economic Forum)

The samples were distributed among three teams doing separate analyses eight years after Arafat's death in a French hospital, Patrice Mangin told Le Matin Dimanche.

A Palestinian pathologist was the only person allowed to touch the body when Arafat's grave was opened on Tuesday in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

He was able to "take all the samples that were wanted, around 60 in total," said Mangin, the director of the Swiss University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne.

A French team is carrying out a separate probe at the request of Arafat's widow Suha, while a Russian team was appointed by the Palestinian authority.

Mangin said the investigation would take three or four months.

Speaking shortly after the exhumation process was completed, Tawfiq Tirawi, who heads the Palestinian investigation into Arafat's death, said Ramallah would petition the International Criminal Court in The Hague if it found proof that the veteran leader was poisoned.

The investigations were set up after evidence emerged that abnormal amounts of polonium, a radioactive substance, were found on Arafat's personal effects.
 
 Polonium was the substance that killed Russian ex-spy and fierce Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.

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