Yasser Arafat's body tested for poison
PALESTINIAN leader Yasser Arafat’s body will be exhumed this week to discover whether he was killed by a radioactive poison.
It is claimed Arafat, 75, was murdered with polonium-210, the same substance used to kill former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.
Scientists from France, Russia and Switzerland will each take samples for analysis after Arafat’s body is removed from a stone mausoleum in Ramalah on Tuesday before being re-interred later the same day.
France launched a murder inquiry earlier this year into Arafat’s death in Paris in 2004. Medical reports at the time put the cause of death down to a stroke caused by an unknown infection.
Palestinian sources have long alleged that Israeli intelligence agents were involved in his death, a claim the Israelis have denied.
In August the case took a surprising twist when an investigation by Arab TV station Al Jazeera and experts from the Institute of Radiation Physics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland found “significant” traces of polonium-210 in samples taken from Arafat’s personal effects.
Palestinian sources have long alleged that Israeli intelligence agents were involved in his death, a claim the Israelis have denied
The unexplained radioactive hot spots, 10 times normal levels, were found in Arafat’s trademark keffiyeh headscarf, articles of clothing and his toothbrush.
The dawn operation to reopen the concrete-encased tomb will take place under a veil of secrecy. The mausoleum was sealed off with blue tarpaulin earlier this month and all roads to the site closed.
Tawfik Tirawi, who heads the Palestinian team of investigators, said the results of the scientific tests would not be known for several months.
Polonium-210 is known to decompose rapidly and there is no guarantee the exhumation will solve the mystery.