Arafat poison tests paid for by widow, PA: report

Yasser Arafat

JERUSALEM   — The widow of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority paid for the Swiss medical tests on the late Palestinian leader’s body that showed he did not die of natural causes.

The Washington Free Beacon reported Nov. 8 that a spokesperson for the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne told the newspaper that Suha Arafat and the PA paid for the tests.

The tests “moderately” supported the notion that Arafat had been poisoned with polonium, a radioactive substance.

Al Jazeera America reported last week that it believed the Swiss lab conducted the tests for free as a public service, according to the Free Beacon.

Polonium is a highly toxic substance that is rarely found outside military and scientific circles. The substance was found in Arafat’s ribs and pelvis, and in the soil beneath where his body was buried, according to Al Jazeera America.

A report issued Nov. 8 by a team of Russian scientists found insufficient evidence that Arafat was poisoned with polonium.

Arafat led the Palestine Liberation Organization for 35 years and became the first president of the Palestinian Authority in 1996. He fell violently ill in October 2004 and died two weeks later, at age 75, in a Paris military hospital. His remains were exhumed last year

Suha Arafat had filed legal action in July 2012 asking French authorities to look into claims her husband was poisoned. The following month, French prosecutors opened a murder inquiry into the death of Arafat.

Last week, Palestinian investigators said Israel was the “only suspect” in the death of Arafat, after laboratory tests suggested the Palestinian leader died from poisoning.

“We say that Israel is the prime and only suspect in the case of Yasser Arafat’s assassination, and we will continue to carry out a thorough investigation to find out and confirm all the details and all elements of the case,” Palestinian inquiry chief Tawfiq Tirawi told a news conference in Ramallah Nov. 8.

Tirawi said the Palestinian inquiry had studied the findings of Swiss scientists, released Nov. 6, which “moderately” supported the notion that Arafat had been poisoned with polonium, a radioactive substance.

The next day, Palestinian officials demanded an international inquiry into Arafat’s “killing.”

Wasel Abu Yusef, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official, said polonium “is owned by states, not people, meaning that the crime was committed by a state.”

Speaking to reporters in Lausanne, the Swiss team said the test results neither confirmed nor counted out that polonium was the actual source of his death, although they provided “moderate” backing for the idea he was poisoned.

They said the quantity of the deadly substance found on his remains pointed to the involvement of a third party.

“We can’t say that polonium was the source of his death… nor can we rule it out,” said Prof. Francois Bochud of the Lausanne Institute of Applied Radiophysics.