Nine years after Yasser Arafat died in a French military hospital on November 11, 2004, a Swiss team of toxicologists has found traces of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 in his exhumed remains, as well as in his shroud and the soil of his shrine.
A Russian team also found traces of polonium in the body of the leader of Fatah and elected president of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Swiss scientists said there was an 83 percent probability that the late Palestinian leader was poisoned. proving, and expanding the web site.
Their findings, part of the French authorities' broader investigation into Arafat's death, confirm that the Palestinian leader was assassinated.
As soon as Arafat, who was in good health, became ill after eating a meal at his compound in Ramallah in October of 2004, there were suspicions that he had been poisoned. But it proved impossible to determine whether that was the case. None of the doctors treating him, in Palestine or in France, were able to diagnose the cause of his illness, which was a combination of intestinal inflammation, jaundice and a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation.