THE MYSTERY OF ARAFAT'S DEATH : SCIENTISTS CONFIRM THAT TRACES OF POLONIUM ARE PRESENT ON HIS CLOTHES

 

Arafat's widow had always maintained that her husband had been killed.  Although he was in frail health, she knew that something was wrong with the way he died. Isreal said it was a witch hunt, to try to find something else to blame them for.  The Palestinians replied that their leader had been poisoned, without a doubt.  But the truth might be much harder to ascertain.

However, the exhumation of the Palestinian's leader's body may just have confirmed her suspicion.  

Swiss experts have indeed confirmed that traces of polonium are present on the clothing he was buried in. 

The report of the forensic findings were published in none other than the Lancet, one of the foremost medical publications in the world. 

The first thing that alarmed the widow Arafat, was the fact, that notwithstanding Arafat's age, the doctors could not identify his cause of death, which was rather slow.  Strangely enough though, no autopsy was ordered at the time. 

To the widow, and many other supporters of the Palestinian leader, what rang a bell, was the sudden and very painful death of Russian agent Litvinenko in 2006.  

In addition to polonium on his burial clothing, scientists in the study also found polonium in the urine and blood of the deceased.  The specific type of polonium is P210.  The quantity found in the samples was several millibecquerels, a unit of radioactivity not found in the environment. 

The findings point to a possible ingestion, therefore deliberate poisoning of several billion becquerels.   Polonium has a very fast decay rate, but its original quantity can easily be calculated by factoring time elapsed and decay rate. 

What is puzzling however, is that Arafat did not display the other typical symptoms, which were very much evident in Litvinenko's case, of losing hair and bone marrow activity slowdown which follow poisoning with polonium 210.  

However, the head of communications of the Vaudois Univ. Hospital Centre, in charge of the Institute of Radiation Physics, reiterated her belief that there is no conclusion to date that Arafat was poisoned. 

France 24/ 10.14.13