Russian report says no support for Arafat poisoning claim

  • 11 years ago
The Russian forensic report into samples taken from the body of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is being much more prudent about the presence of polonium 210.

On Wednesday Arafat’s widow went to the media to claim her husband had been poisoned. One broadcaster published what it claimed was the Swiss forensic report, which says enough evidence of radioactive poisoning exists to open an enquiry.

“We consider Israel the first, fundamental and only suspect in Yasser Arafat’s assassination,” says the head of the Palestinian’s Arafat death investigation Tawfiq Tirawi.

The Russian report however states there is insufficient proof to support a claim of poisoning.

“I want to say this as clearly as I can, Israel did not kill (Yasser) Arafat, period. It’s as simple as that, There is nothing more to it. We have nothing to do with it. Palestinians should stop levelling all these groundless accusations without the slightest proof because enough is enough. We have strictly nothing to do with this and that is all there is to it,” said Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

Yasser Arafat died in 2004 in Percy military hospital near Paris after the 75 year-old was struck with a mystery illness while under Israeli siege in Ramallah. The third and final French forensic report remains unpublished.

http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/fallon/polonium_faqs.pdf

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