RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Israel poisoned the late Yasser Arafat with the lethal radioactive substance polonium, a nephew of the veteran Palestinian leader alleged on Thursday, prompting an Israeli denial.
“We accuse Israel of killing Yasser Arafat by poisoning him with that lethal substance,” Nasser Al-Kidwa told AFP, referring to polonium, traces of which were recently found on clothing worn by Arafat when he was ailing.
“Those responsible for that assassination should be held accountable and judged,” said Kidwa, who is also president of the Yasser Arafat Foundation.
Allegations that the long-time Palestinian leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was poisoned were resurrected earlier this month after Al-Jazeera news channel broadcast an investigation in which experts said they had found high levels of polonium on his personal effects.
Polonium is a highly toxic substance which is rarely found outside military and scientific circles, and was used to kill former Russian spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 shortly after drinking tea laced with the poison.
But a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu completely rejected Kidwa’s charge, denying any involvement in the 75-year-old’s death.
“Israel was not involved in the death of Arafat,” Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev told AFP. “All the medical files are in the hands of the Palestinians and it was not Israel who is preventing their publication.”
The Arafat Foundation said on Thursday it was releasing all the medical files it had on Arafat’s illness and death for the first time, including many from the French military hospital where he died in 2004.
The documents can be found here: http://yaf.ps/yaf/web_files/news_file/The_Medical_Reports_0.PDF
No more doubt
Kidwa said the Al-Jazeera investigation meant there was “no longer any doubt” that Arafat was “assassinated by poisoning.”
Experts at the Swiss laboratory which conducted the testing said they had found “significant” traces of polonium on Arafat’s effects, but that they would need to exhume his body to take further samples to confirm that he was poisoned.
Palestinian officials have said they would agree to the exhumation of the body, which is buried in the West Bank town of Ramallah, if the family agreed.
Arafat’s wife Suha, who refused an autopsy at the time of her husband’s death, has said she supports exhumation, and Kidwa told AFP on Thursday he would also back such a move.
“The Arafat Foundation contacted the Swiss laboratory and informed them that it had no objection to analyzing samples from the body of the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat if it is necessary,” he said.
Palestinian officials hesitant
But an Associated Press report said Palestinian investigators looking into Arafat’s death said Thursday they want to review reports from a Swiss lab before deciding whether to exhume the leader’s remains.
Earlier this week, a senior West Bank official said a final decision was made to examine Arafat’s bones. That development followed an announcement by Switzerland’s Institute of Radiation Physics, which said it found unexplained, elevated traces of a radioactive agent, polonium-210, on clothing and personal items Arafat used before his Nov. 11, 2004 death at a French military hospital.
The lab said the results were inconclusive and that Arafat’s remains would have to be tested to learn more.
Since Arafat’s death, several senior Palestinian officials have alleged that Israel poisoned the Palestinian leader, a charge Israel vehemently denied. At the time of his death, Israel had accused Arafat of complicity in the second Palestinian uprising.
Testing Arafat’s bones could offer the last chance to get to the bottom of Palestinian claims that their leader was poisoned, though some experts cautioned it may already be too late for conclusive answers.
Earlier this week, a top Palestinian official, Saeb Erekat, said President Mahmoud Abbas decided to exhume the body and would invite a team from the Swiss lab to come to the West Bank to perform the tests.
In an apparent reversal, members of a Palestinian committee set up to investigate Arafat’s death suggested Thursday the final word has not been spoken on whether to dig up the remains.
Arafat’s remains are housed in a mausoleum in Abbas’ walled government compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Justice Minister Ali Mohanna, a member of the committee, told a news conference Thursday that Palestinian officials first want to review the Swiss lab report. After such a review, “we will decide what testing we need to do,” he said.
Nasser Al-Kidwa, an Arafat nephew and custodian of the late leader’s legacy, has contacted the lab in hope of obtaining the full test records, said Mohanna.
He offered no explanation for the apparent U-turn. An autopsy could offend cultural sensibilities of conservative Palestinians, but at the same time the Palestinian leadership is under domestic pressure to do everything necessary to investigate the latest findings.
Arafat’s widow Suha, last week demanded that her husband’s grave be reopened. Mrs. Arafat has cooperated closely with the Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera, giving the broadcaster some of her husband’s belongings and his medical file. The Swiss lab reports were first published by Al-Jazeera, at the end of a nine-month investigation.
Former Palestinian intelligence chief Tawfik Tirawi suggested Thursday that the widow decided to let the committee take the lead in deciding whether to conduct an autopsy. Tirawi said he spoke to Mrs. Arafat two days ago. He did not elaborate, and it was not clear if he meant she would withdraw her request for exhuming the remains if the committee made such a decision.
On Thursday, one of Arafat’s physicians, Dr. Abdullah Bashir, reiterated the claim that Arafat was poisoned, without specifically blaming Israel. Bashir said poison experts contacted by the committee agreed with that assumption, but he did not identify the experts or explain how they reached that conclusion.
Arafat had spent the last three years of his life under Israeli siege at his Ramallah compound, now used by Abbas.
In October 2004, the 75-year-old Arafat fell violently ill and was airlifted to France.
French doctors said he died of a massive stroke and suffered from a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC. But the records were inconclusive about what brought about the DIC, which has numerous possible causes, including infections and liver disease.
Bashir said the French medical records were incomplete.
“We have sent questions and received answers from the French hospital, and we consider the French report in regards to (possible) poisons to be weak,” he said.