Two teams to probe Arafat's death

2 Oct 2012, 1:30 pm   -   Source: AAP
Two teams will conduct parallel probes into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. (AAP)

Two teams will conduct parallel probes into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. (AAP)

Investigators from France and Switzerland will conduct parallel probes into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Investigators from France and Switzerland will conduct parallel probes into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

His remains will be exhumed, at a date kept secret, to give each team a chance to draw samples to test for poisoning.

The two teams are acting separately on behalf of Arafat's widow Suha Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, who each had misgivings about the other's investigation.

The push to re-examine Arafat's 2004 death come after a Swiss lab's recent discovery of polonium-210, a deadly radioactive isotope, on clothes said to belong to the Palestinian leader. This fuelled new suspicions of poisoning.

The French team is composed of criminal investigators acting at the request of Suha Arafat, while the Palestinian Authority invited the Swiss lab to examine the remains of the longtime leader and determine how he died eight years ago. A spokesman for neither team could be reached for comment.

Arafat's death in a French hospital in November 2004 has remained a mystery for many. While the immediate cause of death was a stroke, the underlying source of an illness he suffered in his final weeks has never been clear, leading to persistent, unproven conspiracy theories that he had cancer, AIDS or was poisoned.

Suha Arafat has long had rocky relations with the Palestinian Authority's president Mahmoud Abbas, and the probes' potential to be politically explosive appears to have fuelled more distrust. She had asked the Palestinian Authority to suspend any other probe or ensure it was coordinated with the French investigation.

While their probes are separate, the French and Swiss investigators are set to visit the grave together and will be allowed only one chance to draw samples, said Tawfik Tirawi, head of the Palestinian committee investigating the death.

"The grave will be opened only one time for the two teams to take the samples," he said.

That precaution may be part of an attempt by Palestinian officials to keep the exhumation out of the public eye in hopes of avoiding a spectacle. Tirawi refused to reveal a date, saying only that the teams were coordinating their arrival.

Arafat lies in a giant mausoleum built by the Palestinians outside government headquarters in a central area of Ramallah.

Arafat, who was 75, died at a French military hospital on November 11, 2004, two weeks after he was rushed there from his West Bank headquarters with a mysterious illness.

According to French medical records, he had suffered inflammation, jaundice and a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC, before the stroke.

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