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French Launch Formal Probe into Arafat’s Death

Posted By The Media Line Staff On In Mideast Daily News

Following the filing by his widow and daughter of a complaint alleging Yassir Arafat was murdered, French authorities have launched a formal inquiry into the Palestinian leader’s death in 2004. In his last days, Arafat had been transferred to a French military hospital where he died, followed immediately by accusations that Israel had killed him and alternatively, that he was the victim of intra-Palestinian rivalries. The story resurfaced when several weeks ago the Al-Jazeera network, in the course of preparing a documentary, obtained personal articles from widow Suha and had them analyzed by a Swiss laboratory. The report showed traces of polonium-210, a toxic substance not readily available outside of governments and militaries, which achieved notoriety in the 2006 poisoning of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. The discovery triggered new calls to investigate Arafat’s death and since that time red tape in the Palestinian Authority surrounding a possible exhumation and re-examination of the body has been cleared. The murder complaint was filed in Paris on July 31 and the French news agency AFP reported on Tuesday that a formal inquiry into Arafat’s death will ensue. Israel has vehemently rejected accusations that it was involved in his death; and many surmise it was more likely an internal Palestinian matter.