French experts rule out Arafat poisoning

By David Poort and Trevor Aaronson

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 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 Palestinian leader, and her lawyer, Saad Djabbar, French investigators found traces of the radioactive element polonium-210 but concluded that Yasser Arafat died of natural causes.

The French tests, conducted independently and in secret as part of a murder investigation, appear to contradict Swiss findings, which "moderately supported" the possibility that polonium-210 was the cause of Arafat's death.

Samples of Arafat's remains were provided to Swiss, French and Russian teams after his body was exhumed from a mausoleum in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank in November 2012.

Last month Al Jazeera published a study by Switzerland's Lausanne University that found 18 to 36 times the normal background levels of polonium in Arafat's rib and hips and in the surrounding soil stained by fluid from his body.

A similar forensic test conducted by Russian scientists, who were invited to participate by Palestinian Authority officials, was inconclusive.

Arafat fell ill on Oct. 10, 2004, after eating a meal in his compound in Ramallah, which had been under siege for more than two years by the Israel military. His doctor initially diagnosed flulike symptoms. He did not recover and was flown to Percy Military Hospital in Paris on Oct. 29 for treatment.

Doctors in Paris conducted toxicology exams and did not find evidence of common poisons. The French doctors could not explain Arafat's illness, though they did not test for polonium at the time.

In late 2011, Al Jazeera began an investigation of Arafat's death. Suha Arafat gave the network access to Arafat's medical file and a gym bag containing clothes he wore prior to his death.

The files and clothing were taken to the Centre for Legal Medicine and Institute of Radiophysics at Lausanne University in Switzerland.

Scientists there found heightened levels of radioactive polonium 210 in blood and urine stains on Arafat's belongings, prompting his widow to ask for her late husband's body to be exhumed for additional tests.

At the same time, on July 31, 2012, Suha Arafat, who is a French citizen, filed a complaint at a criminal court in Nanterre, a western suburb of Paris.

With Arafat's death in France, and Swiss scientists finding evidence of polonium 210, the French court appointed three prosecutors on Aug. 28, 2012, to investigate whether Arafat was murdered.

In November 2012, the Palestinian Authority agreed to exhume Arafat's body and provide 20 samples each to French, Swiss and Russian investigators.

The French prosecutors, along with a scientific and pathology team, attended Arafat's exhumation in Ramallah. There were no French radiological experts present at the exhumation, according to the Swiss scientists who were there. 

Al Jazeera