Widow: Arafat Was Poisoned With Polonium
The body of former Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat was exhumed earlier this year. Now, his widow is speaking out, claiming that a method of poisoning favored by Russians was used on her husband:
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium, his widow Suha Arafat said on Wednesday after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband’s corpse.
“We are revealing a real crime, a political assassination,” she told Reuters in Paris.
A team of experts, including from Lausanne University Hospital’s Institute of Radiation Physics, opened Arafat’s grave in the West Bank city of Ramallah last November, and took samples from his body to seek evidence of alleged poisoning.
“This has confirmed all our doubts,” said Suha Arafat, who met members of the Swiss forensic team in Geneva on Tuesday. “It is scientifically proved that he didn’t die a natural death and we have scientific proof that this man was killed.”
She did not accuse any country or person, and acknowledged that the historic leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization had many enemies.
