A highly criticized Swiss analysis suggested a moderate possibility of polonium poisoining as the cause of Yasser Arafat’s death. Arafat’s widow had requested the testing.
Palestinian political officials immediately announced (as they had even before the Swiss report) that Israel was the culprit.
AFP now is reporting that a French group of experts dismisses the claim of poisoning (h/t NOW English):
Arafat’s death: French experts dismiss the poisoning theory (via Google Translate):
So says a source close to the …The experts appointed by the French justice to investigate the death of Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004 near Paris, depart the thesis of poisoning the Palestinian leader, told AFP on Tuesday a source familiar with the matter.”This report rejected the theory of poisoning and goes in the direction of a natural death,” the source said, confirming information from France Inter. Recent reports of Swiss and Russian medical tests on samples of the remains of the historic Palestinian leader had revealed the presence of abnormal amounts of polonium-210 in the body and seemed to support the theory of poisoning.
Update: Al Jazeera is reporting similar findings:
French investigators have concluded in a report that Yasser Arafat died of natural causes and ruled out the possibility that he was poisoned, a source told Al Jazeera. “The analysis cannot lead us to affirm that Arafat died of polonium 210 poisoning,” reads the report, according to the source, who who has seen it. The report comes to the same conclusion the French reached in 2004 – that Arafat died of a brain hemorrhage and an intestinal infection. According to the forensic report presented in Paris to Suha Arafat, the widow of the late Palestinian leader, and her lawyer, Saad Djabbar, French investigators found traces of the radioactive element polonium 210, but concluded that Arafat died of natural causes.
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