JERUSALEM –The remains of Yasser Arafat, the iconic Palestinian leader who died in 2004, were exhumed from his tomb in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday as part of an inquiry into whether he might have been poisoned, Palestinian officials said.
The probe was ordered after an investigative report on the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera in July presented what it said was evidence of a poisoning, reviving suspicions surrounding Arafat’s death.
The report prompted Arafat’s widow, Suha, to call for an exhumation, which was later authorized by the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank.
Palestinian officials have long accused Israel of poisoning Arafat, who personified dreams of Palestinian statehood and over decades shifted from embracing terror tactics to negotiating a peace deal, after confining him in his Ramallah compound for more than two years during the second Palestinian uprising.
Israeli officials have dismissed the claims.
Arafat’s remains were disinterred Tuesday at dawn from his tomb in the presidential compound, which was hidden from view by blue tarpaulins. The remains were taken to a nearby mosque, where Palestinian doctors took samples and handed them over to French, Swiss and Russian experts, who will examine them in their home countries, officials said.
“The process and the work of the experts began early in the morning, and as far as I know everything went well, and they were able to collect what was needed,” said Nour Odeh, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Authority. Arafat’s remains were reburied hours later.
Arafat died in a French military hospital in November 2004, at age 75, about two weeks after he was flown from Ramallah when his health deteriorated.
Medical records showed that he had died from a stroke caused by a bleeding disorder stemming from an underlying infection that was never identified.
The French hospital found no traces of poison.
But in its televised report, al-Jazeera said it had turned over some of Arafat’s personal effects — including clothing he had worn before his death, his toothbrush and his trademark black-checked head scarf — to the University of Lausanne’s Institute of Radiation Physics in Switzerland, which tested them and found high levels of the very toxic radioactive isotope polonium 210. The items, stored for years, were given to the television channel by Arafat’s widow and taken to the institute for testing.
Polonium was identified as the substance that killed Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who became a critic of the Russian government. Litvinenko died in 2006 after being poisoned in London.
Following a formal complaint lodged by Suha Arafat, French authorities in August opened a murder inquiry into Yasser Arafat’s death.
Experts at the Swiss institute said Arafat’s remains would have to be examined to corroborate any suspicions of poisoning.
But polonium-210 decomposes rapidly, and it was unclear whether the samples taken on Tuesday, years after his death, would provide any conclusive evidence.
The probe was ordered after an investigative report on the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera in July presented what it said was evidence of a poisoning, reviving suspicions surrounding Arafat’s death.
The report prompted Arafat’s widow, Suha, to call for an exhumation, which was later authorized by the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank.
Palestinian officials have long accused Israel of poisoning Arafat, who personified dreams of Palestinian statehood and over decades shifted from embracing terror tactics to negotiating a peace deal, after confining him in his Ramallah compound for more than two years during the second Palestinian uprising.
Israeli officials have dismissed the claims.
Arafat’s remains were disinterred Tuesday at dawn from his tomb in the presidential compound, which was hidden from view by blue tarpaulins. The remains were taken to a nearby mosque, where Palestinian doctors took samples and handed them over to French, Swiss and Russian experts, who will examine them in their home countries, officials said.
“The process and the work of the experts began early in the morning, and as far as I know everything went well, and they were able to collect what was needed,” said Nour Odeh, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Authority. Arafat’s remains were reburied hours later.
Arafat died in a French military hospital in November 2004, at age 75, about two weeks after he was flown from Ramallah when his health deteriorated.
Medical records showed that he had died from a stroke caused by a bleeding disorder stemming from an underlying infection that was never identified.
The French hospital found no traces of poison.
But in its televised report, al-Jazeera said it had turned over some of Arafat’s personal effects — including clothing he had worn before his death, his toothbrush and his trademark black-checked head scarf — to the University of Lausanne’s Institute of Radiation Physics in Switzerland, which tested them and found high levels of the very toxic radioactive isotope polonium 210. The items, stored for years, were given to the television channel by Arafat’s widow and taken to the institute for testing.
Polonium was identified as the substance that killed Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who became a critic of the Russian government. Litvinenko died in 2006 after being poisoned in London.
Following a formal complaint lodged by Suha Arafat, French authorities in August opened a murder inquiry into Yasser Arafat’s death.
Experts at the Swiss institute said Arafat’s remains would have to be examined to corroborate any suspicions of poisoning.
But polonium-210 decomposes rapidly, and it was unclear whether the samples taken on Tuesday, years after his death, would provide any conclusive evidence.