Yasser Arafat poisoned by polonium: Report
Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004, was poisoned by polonium, according to the findings of research carried out in Switzerland and cited in an Al-Jazeera report on Tuesday. - The analysis focused on biological samples taken from the late Palestinian leader's belongings given to his wife Suha by the military hospital in Paris where he died, according to Francois Bochud, head of the Institute of Radiation Physics at University of Lausanne. "The conclusion was that we did find some significant polonium that was present in these samples," Bochud said. Arafat died in 2004, following several weeks of treatment. At that time Palestinian officials said he had been poisoned by Israel, but an inconclusive probe in 2005 ruled out cancer, AIDS or poisoning.
Al Jazeera: What[Who] Killed Arafat? - Arafat's widow calls to exhume his body - Tests conducted in Paris found no obvious traces of poison in Arafat’s system. Rumors abound about what might have killed him – cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, even allegations that he was infected with HIV. A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed that none of those rumors were true: Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004. More importantly, tests reveal that Arafat’s final personal belongings – his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh – contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element. Those personal effects, which were analyzed at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, were variously stained with Arafat’s blood, sweat, saliva and urine. The tests carried out on those samples suggested that there was a high level of polonium inside his body when he died.