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| FILE - In this May 31, 2002 file photo, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat pauses during the weekly Muslim Friday prayers in his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Al-Jazeera is reporting that a team of Swiss scientists has found moderate evidence that longtime Palestinian leader Arafat died of poisoning. The Arab satellite channel published a copy of what it said was the scientists' report on its website on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013. |
RAMALLAH, West
Bank (AP) -- Swiss scientists have found evidence suggesting Yasser
Arafat may have been poisoned with a radioactive substance, a TV station
reported Wednesday, prompting new allegations by his widow that the
Palestinian leader was the victim of a "shocking" crime.
Palestinian
officials have long accused Israel of poisoning Arafat, a claim Israel
has denied. Arafat died under mysterious circumstances at a French
military hospital in 2004, a month after falling ill at his
Israeli-besieged West Bank compound.
The
findings reported Wednesday appear to be the most significant so far in
an investigation into Arafat's death initiated by his widow, Suha, and
the satellite TV station Al-Jazeera.
Last
year, Switzerland's Institute of Radiation Physics discovered traces of
polonium-210, a deadly radioactive isotope, on some of Arafat's
belongings. Soil and bone samples were subsequently taken from Arafat's
grave in the West Bank.
On Wednesday, the TV
station published the Swiss team's 108-page report on the soil and bone
samples. The results "moderately support the proposition that the death
was the consequence of poisoning with polonium-210," the report said.
Repeated
attempts to reach the main author, Patrice Mangin, or the
Lausanne-based institute's spokesman, Darcy Christen, were unsuccessful
Wednesday night.
Experts not connected to the report said the results support the case that Arafat was poisoned, but don't prove it.
Suha Arafat told Al-Jazeera she was stunned and saddened by the findings.
"It's a shocking, shocking crime to get rid of a great leader," she said.
She
did not mention Israel, but suggested that a country with nuclear
capability was involved in her husband's death. "I can't accuse anyone,
but how many countries have an atomic reactor that can produce
polonium?" she said.
Polonium can be a
byproduct of the chemical processing of uranium, but usually is made
artificially in a nuclear reactor or a particle accelerator. Israel has a
nuclear research center and is widely believed to have a nuclear
arsenal, but remains ambiguous about the subject.
Arafat's
widow demanded that a Palestinian committee that has been investigating
her husband's death now try to find "the real person who did it."
The committee also received a copy of the report, but declined comment.
The
head of the committee, Tawfik Tirawi, said details would be presented
at a news conference in two days, and that the Palestinian Authority,
led by Arafat successor Mahmoud Abbas, would announce what it plans to
do next.
An official in Abbas' Fatah movement
raised the possibility of taking the case to the International Criminal
Court. "We will pursue this crime, the crime of the century," said the
official, Abbas Zaki.
Raanan Gissin, who was
an Israeli government spokesman when Arafat died, reiterated Wednesday
that Israel had no role in his death.
"It was a
government decision not to touch Arafat at all," he said, adding that
"if anyone poisoned him, it could have been someone from his close
circle."
Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004, a month
after falling violently ill at his Ramallah compound. French doctors
said he died of a massive stroke and had suffered from a blood condition
known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC. But the
records were inconclusive about what led to the DIC, which has numerous
possible causes, including infections and liver disease.
Polonium
is a rare and highly lethal substance. A miniscule amount can kill. Its
most famous victim was KGB agent-turned-Kremlin critic Alexander
Litvinenko, who died in London in 2006 after the substance was slipped
into his tea.
The examination of the Arafat's remains found "unexpectedly high levels" of polonium-210, the Swiss team wrote.
Derek
Hill, a professor in radiological science at University College London
who was not involved in the investigation, said the levels of
polonium-210 cited in the report seem "way above normal."
"I
would say it's clearly not overwhelming proof, and there is a risk of
contamination (of the samples), but it is a pretty strong signal," he
said. "It seems likely what they're doing is putting a very cautious
interpretation of strong data."
He said
polonium is "kind of a perfect poison" because it is so hard to detect
unless experts look for it using specialized equipment generally found
only in government laboratories.
Bruce
Goldberger, director of health forensic medicine at the University of
Florida, said the report was appropriately cautious in saying it had
found moderate support for the idea that polonium poisoning killed
Arafat. It does not prove that idea, he said.
Yet,
"what they did was extraordinary" in view of the limitations they
faced, he said. Those include the lack of fresh body tissue to analyze,
the years of polonium decay that would leave only tiny amounts to look
for and the lack of medical and scientific knowledge about polonium
poisoning.
Goldberger noted that Arafat did
not show some classic signs of radiation poisoning, further muddying the
strength of the conclusion.
Lawrence
Kobilinsky, a professor of forensic science at the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice in New York, also said the report does not prove Arafat
died from polonium. He noted that other scientific teams are expected
to issue reports on the case.
"It looks like
he's been poisoned, but I would wait for the other groups to confirm
it," he said. "It's not done until we get a confirmation. This is how
science works"
Nathan Lents, deputy chair of
the department of sciences at John Jay, said the report's results are
consistent with a possible polonium poisoning, but "there's certainly
not a smoking gun here."
RAMALLAH, West
Bank (AP) -- Swiss scientists have found evidence suggesting Yasser
Arafat may have been poisoned with a radioactive substance, a TV station
reported Wednesday, prompting new allegations by his widow that the
Palestinian leader was the victim of a "shocking" crime.
Palestinian
officials have long accused Israel of poisoning Arafat, a claim Israel
has denied. Arafat died under mysterious circumstances at a French
military hospital in 2004, a month after falling ill at his
Israeli-besieged West Bank compound.
The
findings reported Wednesday appear to be the most significant so far in
an investigation into Arafat's death initiated by his widow, Suha, and
the satellite TV station Al-Jazeera.
Last
year, Switzerland's Institute of Radiation Physics discovered traces of
polonium-210, a deadly radioactive isotope, on some of Arafat's
belongings. Soil and bone samples were subsequently taken from Arafat's
grave in the West Bank.
On Wednesday, the TV
station published the Swiss team's 108-page report on the soil and bone
samples. The results "moderately support the proposition that the death
was the consequence of poisoning with polonium-210," the report said.
Repeated
attempts to reach the main author, Patrice Mangin, or the
Lausanne-based institute's spokesman, Darcy Christen, were unsuccessful
Wednesday night.
Experts not connected to the report said the results support the case that Arafat was poisoned, but don't prove it.
Suha Arafat told Al-Jazeera she was stunned and saddened by the findings.
"It's a shocking, shocking crime to get rid of a great leader," she said.
She
did not mention Israel, but suggested that a country with nuclear
capability was involved in her husband's death. "I can't accuse anyone,
but how many countries have an atomic reactor that can produce
polonium?" she said.
Polonium can be a
byproduct of the chemical processing of uranium, but usually is made
artificially in a nuclear reactor or a particle accelerator. Israel has a
nuclear research center and is widely believed to have a nuclear
arsenal, but remains ambiguous about the subject.
Arafat's
widow demanded that a Palestinian committee that has been investigating
her husband's death now try to find "the real person who did it."
The committee also received a copy of the report, but declined comment.
The
head of the committee, Tawfik Tirawi, said details would be presented
at a news conference in two days, and that the Palestinian Authority,
led by Arafat successor Mahmoud Abbas, would announce what it plans to
do next.
An official in Abbas' Fatah movement
raised the possibility of taking the case to the International Criminal
Court. "We will pursue this crime, the crime of the century," said the
official, Abbas Zaki.
Raanan Gissin, who was
an Israeli government spokesman when Arafat died, reiterated Wednesday
that Israel had no role in his death.
"It was a
government decision not to touch Arafat at all," he said, adding that
"if anyone poisoned him, it could have been someone from his close
circle."
Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004, a month
after falling violently ill at his Ramallah compound. French doctors
said he died of a massive stroke and had suffered from a blood condition
known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC. But the
records were inconclusive about what led to the DIC, which has numerous
possible causes, including infections and liver disease.
Polonium
is a rare and highly lethal substance. A miniscule amount can kill. Its
most famous victim was KGB agent-turned-Kremlin critic Alexander
Litvinenko, who died in London in 2006 after the substance was slipped
into his tea.
The examination of the Arafat's remains found "unexpectedly high levels" of polonium-210, the Swiss team wrote.
Derek
Hill, a professor in radiological science at University College London
who was not involved in the investigation, said the levels of
polonium-210 cited in the report seem "way above normal."
"I
would say it's clearly not overwhelming proof, and there is a risk of
contamination (of the samples), but it is a pretty strong signal," he
said. "It seems likely what they're doing is putting a very cautious
interpretation of strong data."
He said
polonium is "kind of a perfect poison" because it is so hard to detect
unless experts look for it using specialized equipment generally found
only in government laboratories.
Bruce
Goldberger, director of health forensic medicine at the University of
Florida, said the report was appropriately cautious in saying it had
found moderate support for the idea that polonium poisoning killed
Arafat. It does not prove that idea, he said.
Yet,
"what they did was extraordinary" in view of the limitations they
faced, he said. Those include the lack of fresh body tissue to analyze,
the years of polonium decay that would leave only tiny amounts to look
for and the lack of medical and scientific knowledge about polonium
poisoning.
Goldberger noted that Arafat did
not show some classic signs of radiation poisoning, further muddying the
strength of the conclusion.
Lawrence
Kobilinsky, a professor of forensic science at the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice in New York, also said the report does not prove Arafat
died from polonium. He noted that other scientific teams are expected
to issue reports on the case.
"It looks like
he's been poisoned, but I would wait for the other groups to confirm
it," he said. "It's not done until we get a confirmation. This is how
science works"
Nathan Lents, deputy chair of
the department of sciences at John Jay, said the report's results are
consistent with a possible polonium poisoning, but "there's certainly
not a smoking gun here."
