Dubai: There have been strong suspicions in the minds of many Arabs and others about the circumstances under which veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died on November 11, 2004. Doctors in France, where Arafat was being treated in his last days, could offer no concrete explanation for his death. Many believed he was poisoned by Israeli intelligence. This theory gained momentum after the Al Jazeera news channel aired a documentary in July on the issue, for which they commissioned a lab analysis of Arafat’s personal effects, with the permission and support of his widow, Suha Arafat.
Now, a Swiss radiology lab has received the go-ahead from Suha Arafat to test his remains for poisoning by polonium, a highly radioactive element. Darcy Christen, a spokesman for the lab at the Lausanne University Hospital Centre, told AFP they were waiting for a formal lawyer’s letter before travelling to Ramallah to carry out the probe. “Time is of the essence, you could say it’s a question of weeks, not months, because the traceability of polonium diminishes by half every 138 days,” Christen said, noting that this has occurred 20 times since Arafat died in 2004.
The Palestinian National Authority has approved the probe. A statement from French lawyers acting for Arafat’s widow and their daughter Zawra welcomed the PNA’s comments.
“We are glad that the position of the Palestinian [National] Authority is to accept the exhumation of the body of Yasser Arafat,” Pierre-Olivier Sur and Jessica Finelle wrote.
“However, we consider that this act of enquiry should be in coordination with the French investigating system... which should appoint an investigating judge to conduct the necessary enquiries,” the statement said.
Speaking to Gulf News, Abdel Bari Atwan, editor in chief of the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Quds Al Arabi, said that France must investigate the case as Arafat died on French soil. “I don’t believe that the Palestinian National Authority is capable of investigating this matter. It is the responsibility of the French. If the French authorities argue, as they well might, that Arafat was brought to France after the alleged poisoning, then it is the responsibility of the international community to investigate this issue. What we need is a UN investigation, along the lines of the tribunal set up to look into the assassination of [former Lebanese premier] Rafik Hariri. The French should at least push for this to happen. It is also the responsibility of the Arab League to take it to the Security Council.”
Asked about the reaction of the PNA, Atwan noted: “The PNA is extremely embarrassed that it was Al Jazeera, a news channel, which did the job that the Authority should have done a long time ago, as it was very clear from the beginning that Yasser Arafat’s death was not by natural causes. Arafat was the symbol of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority. The PNA has now been pushed to the corner by Al Jazeera … they have been embarrassed into action.”
Atwan said that he did not expect the results of an investigation to have any impact on the Middle East “peace process.” “The so-called peace process is already dead. Initially, the Obama administration had raised hopes … but in the end, it surrendered to Israeli orders.”
After a nine-month investigation, Al Jazeera found that Arafat was in “good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004.” The tests it commissioned revealed that the personal belongings he used in his final days — clothes, toothbrush, even his kaffieyeh — “contained abnormal levels of polonium.” The tests also indicated there was a high level of polonium inside his body at the time of his death. Dr Francois Bochud, the director of the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, which analysed the samples, said: “I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids.”
