Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned with radioactive polonium, his widow says after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband’s corpse.
Suha Arafat was commenting after receiving the results of tests carried out by a team of Swiss experts. Arafat’s grave was opened in November 2012 in order for samples to be taken from his body, to investigate allegations he had been assassinated.
“We are revealing a real crime, a political assassination,” Mrs Arafat said.
“This has confirmed all our doubts. It is scientifically proved that he didn’t die a natural death and we have scientific proof that this man was killed.”
She had met with the Swiss team of experts in Geneva on Tuesday. Mrs Arafat did not point the finger of blame at any individual or state, and acknowledged her husband had many enemies.
Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), died in 2004 at the age of 75. Allegations of foul play, largely aimed at Israel, surfaced immediately after his death.
The Israeli government has always denied any role in Arafat’s death, pointing out his age and saying he had an unhealthy lifestyle. The Israeli government has not yet commented on the Swiss test.
In my opinion, it is absolutely certain that the cause of his illness was polonium poisoning. Professor David Barclay
Arafat had been confined to his Ramallah headquarters compound by the Israeli army for the final two-and-a-half years of his life, having led an uprising against Israel after efforts towards a comprehensive peace agreement failed.
Last year an investigation by al-Jazeera reported that traces of polonium-210, the substance that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, had been found on Arafat’s personal effects.
French prosecutors then opened a murder investigation in August 2012, at the request of Mrs Arafat.
Forensic experts from Switzerland, Russia and France all took samples from his corpse for testing after the Palestinian Authority agreed to open his mausoleum.
Professor David Barclay, a British forensic scientist retained by al-Jazeera to interpret the results of the Swiss tests, said the findings from Arafat’s body confirmed the earlier results from traces on his underwear, toothbrush and clothing.
“In my opinion, it is absolutely certain that the cause of his illness was polonium poisoning,” he said. “The levels present in him are sufficient to have caused death.
“What we have got is the smoking gun – the thing that caused his illness and was given to him with malice.”
Arafat fell ill in October 2004. He was flown to Paris by the French government but fell into a coma shortly after his arrival at hospital.
The official cause of death was a massive stroke, but French doctors said at the time they were unable to determine the origin of his illness. No autopsy was carried out.
Professor Barclay said no one would have thought to look for polonium as a possible poison until the Litvinenko case, which occurred two years after Arafat’s death.