Palestinian
leader Yasser.
(AFP Photo/Abbas Momani)
|
French
prosecutors have opened a murder enquiry into Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat's 2004 death near Paris following claims he may have died of polonium
poisoning, sources close to the matter told AFP Tuesday.
The probe
comes after Arafat's family launched legal action in France last month
following reports the veteran Palestinian leader may have died from radioactive
polonium.
Arafat's
widow Suha and his daughter Zawra lodged a murder complaint on July 31 in the
Paris suburb of Nanterre. Arafat died at age 75 at a military hospital near
Paris in 2004.
"A judicial
murder enquiry has been opened, as expected following the complaint from Mrs.
Arafat," a source close to the matter told AFP. Another source confirmed
the probe had been opened.
The
Palestinian Authority hailed the move.
"We
welcome this decision and (Palestinian) president Mahmud Abbas has officially
asked French President Francois Hollande to help us to investigate the
circumstances of the martyrdom of late president Arafat," senior
Palestinian official Saeb Erakat told AFP in Ramallah.
Allegations
that the Nobel Peace laureate was poisoned were resurrected last month after
Al-Jazeera news channel broadcast an investigation in which experts said they
found high levels of polonium on his personal effects.
Polonium is
a highly toxic substance which is rarely found outside military and scientific
circles, and was used to kill former Russian spy turned Kremlin critic
Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 shortly after drinking tea laced with
the poison.
Suha Arafat
has said she backs exhuming her late husband's remains from his mausoleum in
the West Bank town of Ramallah.
A Swiss
radiology lab at the Lausanne University Hospital Centre said on Friday it has
received Suha Arafat's go-ahead to test his remains for poisoning by polonium.
French news
website Slate.fr on Tuesday published a copy of the medical report into
Arafat's death and said his symptoms were not consistent with polonium
poisoning.
Arafat was
sent to the Percy military hospital in Clamart outside Paris after suffering
from nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, acute diarrhea and thrombocytopenia --
an abnormally low amount of platelets in the blood.
Doctors at
the hospital conducted a wide range of tests but were unable to determine the
exact cause of his illness.
A few days
after his arrival in France, Arafat lapsed into a coma and he died on November
11, 2004. No autopsy was conducted.
"The
hypothesis of polonium does not stand up to scrutiny," Marcel
Francis-Kahn, the former chief of rheumatology at Paris's Bichat hospital, told
Slate.fr.
"All
experts know that poisoning by radioactive material does not lead to the
symptoms seen in Arafat," he said, noting that he also suffered no
traditional effects of radiation poisoning such as hair loss and a massive drop
in white blood cells.
At the time
of Arafat's death, Palestinian officials alleged he had been poisoned by
long-time foe Israel, but an inconclusive Palestinian investigation in 2005
ruled out poisoning, as well as cancer and AIDS.
Israel has
consistently denied the allegations, accusing Suha Arafat and Palestinian
officials of covering up the real reasons for the death of the former leader,
who led the struggle for Palestinian statehood for nearly four decades.
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