What Killed Arafat?

[Phil Dragoo]

Peter

Your 52:

"There was not liver cirrhosis, apparently no traces of cancer, no leukemia," said Dr. Patrice Mangin, the head of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Lausanne University. "Concerning HIV, AIDS there was no sign, and the symptomology was not suggesting these things."

Dr. Tawfik Shaaban, a Tunisian specialist in HIV and one of the doctors who examined Arafat in his Ramallah compound, confirmed that there were no signs of the disease.

Their conclusions, of course, were based on documentation rather than firsthand examination. Doctors in Lausanne had hoped to study the blood and urine samples taken from Arafat while he was at Percy Military Hospital in France. But when she requested access, the hospital told his widow that those samples had been destroyed.

"I was not satisfied with that answer," Ms. Arafat said. "Usually a very important person, like Yasser, they would keep traces maybe they don't want to be involved in it?"

Several of the doctors who treated Arafat said that they were not allowed to discuss his case even with Ms. Arafat's permission because it was considered a "military secret." And most of his onetime doctors in Cairo and Tunis refused requests for interviews as well.

Your 57:

In an attempt at transparency, the committee also published 116 pages of medical treatment reports chronicling Arafat's final month.

Treatment notes by Arab doctors summoned to his government compound in Ramallah show that he fell ill on Oct. 11, 2004, when he vomited two hours after supper. Doctors suspected at the time that he suffered from viral gastroenteritis.

His condition deteriorated over the next 18 days, as he continued to vomit and complain of diarrhea. He received a transfusion of blood platelets, and on Oct. 29, 2004 was flown to France, where he died nearly two weeks later.

French doctors said he died of a massive stroke and suffered from a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC.

The records were inconclusive about what brought about the DIC, which has numerous possible causes, including infections and liver disease.

Comparing to polonium:

For several days after 1 November, Litvinenko experienced severe diarrhea and vomiting. At one point, he could not walk without assistance. As the pain intensified, Litvinenko begged his wife to call an ambulance for assistance.[SUP][15][/SUP] For several weeks, Litvinenko's condition worsened as doctors searched for what caused the illness. Surrounded by friends, Litvinenko began to become physically weak, and spent periods unconscious. A photograph was taken of Litvinenko in his death bed and released to the public. "I want the world to see what they did to me," Litvinenko said.[SUP][15]

[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko


[/URL][/SUP][SUP][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko"]
[/URL][/SUP]Viewing Hamas as offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood the proxy of U.S. using Saudi resources viz. Benghazi, Arafat hit by the same CIA running guns at Benghazi using method associated with KGB.

The delay of eight years is a flashing neon sign.

CSI CIA

[Peter Lemkin]

Thanks for reminding me and summarizing. His body WAS exhumed November 27th last year....and silence...I believe it was to take until the end of February for the sophisticated toxicological and radiological tests. The samples were given to the French, Swiss and Russian experts. But, if it is a 'military secret'......angryfire A secret is a secret.....

[Magda Hassan]

The Lancet: Arafat Poisoned With Polonium 210

By China Central Television

Video clip here

October 13, 2013 "Information Clearing House - A report by a respected British medical journal the Lancet, has supported the possibility that late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned with the radioactive element polonium 210.

The journal published a peer review of last year's research by Swiss scientists. It backed their work, which found high levels of the highly radioactive element in blood, urine, and saliva stains on Arafat's clothes and toothbrush.

The Palestinian leader died in 2004 in a French hospital near Paris, after being effectively confined to his West Bank compound for two years.

In November 2012, experts from Switzerland, France and Russia exhumed his remains and took samples to examine for possible poisoning. It was prompted by a documentary aired on Al- Jazeera, that claimed there were traces of polonium in Arafat's personal belongings.

[Magda Hassan]

It's behind a pay wall but here is the link for any one who wants to get it.

The Lancet, Volume 382, Issue 9900, Page 1308, 12 October 2013

doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61834-6Cite or Link Using DOI


Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

Improving forensic investigation for polonium poisoning

Pascal Froidevaux PhD a, Sébastien Baechler PhD a, Claude J Bailat PhD a, Vincent Castella PhD b, Marc Augsburger PhD b, Katarzyna Michaud MD b, Patrice Mangin MD b, Dr François O Bochud PhD a

At the time of publication, the remains of Yasser Arafat have been exhumed and are being investigated for cause of death as a result of the findings of the case reported here.



On Nov 11, 2004, Arafat died at the age of 75 years of an unidentified illness in Percy Hospital, France. He presented with a medical history that began in Ramallah on Oct 12, 2004, with nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhoea. Shortly after, his general health deteriorated with continuing gastrointestinal symptoms, ...

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet...6/fulltext

[David Guyatt]

The Lancet: Arafat Poisoned With Polonium 210

By China Central Television

Video clip here

October 13, 2013 "Information Clearing House - A report by a respected British medical journal the Lancet, has supported the possibility that late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned with the radioactive element polonium 210.

The journal published a peer review of last year's research by Swiss scientists. It backed their work, which found high levels of the highly radioactive element in blood, urine, and saliva stains on Arafat's clothes and toothbrush.

The Palestinian leader died in 2004 in a French hospital near Paris, after being effectively confined to his West Bank compound for two years.

In November 2012, experts from Switzerland, France and Russia exhumed his remains and took samples to examine for possible poisoning. It was prompted by a documentary aired on Al- Jazeera, that claimed there were traces of polonium in Arafat's personal belongings.

That has to narrow the perps don't you think?

[Peter Lemkin]

The Lancet: Arafat Poisoned With Polonium 210

By China Central Television

Video clip here

October 13, 2013 "Information Clearing House - A report by a respected British medical journal the Lancet, has supported the possibility that late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned with the radioactive element polonium 210.

The journal published a peer review of last year's research by Swiss scientists. It backed their work, which found high levels of the highly radioactive element in blood, urine, and saliva stains on Arafat's clothes and toothbrush.

The Palestinian leader died in 2004 in a French hospital near Paris, after being effectively confined to his West Bank compound for two years.

In November 2012, experts from Switzerland, France and Russia exhumed his remains and took samples to examine for possible poisoning. It was prompted by a documentary aired on Al- Jazeera, that claimed there were traces of polonium in Arafat's personal belongings.

That has to narrow the perps don't you think?

Po-210 is only available from active atomic reactors of the type a few nation states have. It can't be purchased on the open market - maybe in some places via a very deep black market. However, a nation state might have given it to an individual or group to use on him. While this article is welcome, there was to be a public report on the NEW post-exhumation investigation...long ago now...what became of it...was it suppressed?!

[Magda Hassan]

Yasser Arafat and the Radioactive Cigarette

• BY DEBORAH BLUM
  
• 12.06.12
  
• 12:58 PM
  

Last week, the body of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was exhumed and tissue samples were taken to be tested for signs of poisoning by the radioactive element polonium-210. As I wrote then, rumors have circulated since Arafat died in 2004 that this was not a natural death, that he was murdered by hostile agents from Israel.
These suspicions were reinforced last summer when preliminary testing of the 75-year-old Arafat's effects his clothes, sheets, even his famed black-checked kaffiyeh showed trace evidence of the radioactive element. (Very trace because this is a hyperactive element with a half-life of a mere 138.4 days a subject I covered in some detail in my post of last week).
But why would this particular element reinforce such suspicions? Because the most probable source of polonium-210 is from weapons-grade nuclear operations best known to be located in Israel, the United States (where polonium was essential to the World War II Manhattan Project) and Russia. This doesn't mean that these countries stockpile the element; this makes no sense with such an unstable material. But nuclear facilities provide a place where a concentrated (lethal) amount can be acquired. Most experts believe that this was the source for the polonium-210 used to murder Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy and a dissident, in 2006.
In Litvinenko's case the radioactive material was slipped into some tea. If the tissue tests from Arafat's body confirm radiation poisoning, then the supposition would be that deliberately tainted food or drink would be the cause. But as those tests being conducted in French, Swiss and Russian laboratories are expected to take several months, it's worth considering some alternate scenarios. After all, polonium-210 is a naturally occurring element as well as a byproduct of nuclear machinery.
As this World Health Organization fact sheet points out, however, naturally occurring levels in soil and rock (mostly in ores also rich in uranium) are basically minuscule. It turns up in wastes from processing materials like uranium, although not in what WHO calls "significant amounts." Still there are two interesting points in this particular fact sheet. One is that it emphasizes the fact that polonium-210 has to be taken internally to be dangerous. That's because Po-210 primarily emits alpha particles (or alpha radiation). These are not penetrating particles they can be blocked by paper, clothes, even our skin.
But if the element enters the body if it's swallowed, inhaled, ingested in some way it becomes deadly. One reason is the high level of radioactivity, the ceaseless spitting of particles that gives polonium-210 such a short half-life. As the WHO also notes, Po-210 is "5,000 times as radioactive as uranium." Which leads me to the other interesting point in this fact sheet. It was produced in 2006, shortly after the Litvinenko poisoning and it answers a key question about exposure by association:
People who come into contact with a person contaminated by Po-210 will not be exposed to radiation (irradiated) simply by being in the proximity of this person, unless they ingest or inhale bodily fluids of the contaminated person. For the general public, normal hygiene measures (such as thorough washing of hands and washing of fruit/vegetables before consumption) are sufficient.
Yassar Arafat, 2001,World Economic Forum

All of this the low level of natural occurrence, the very targeted efficiency of the poison tell you that it's highly unlikely for anyone to accidentally receive a lethal dose of polonium-210.
But it is possible to give yourself a nasty little dose and that's by becoming a heavy smoker of cigarettes. There's a detailed description of some of these risks at the website of Lenntech, a company that makes air and water filters. It cites among other things, data from the CDC that "Americans are exposed to more radiation from tobacco smoke than any other source." It also notes that polonium-210 has been isolated from both the blood and urine of heavy smokers.
Tobacco plants appear to neatly absorb the element from air and soil. In addition, tobacco growers have frequently relied on fertilizers enriched with phosphate by the mineral apatite, which often comes in tandem with radium, (Ra), an element known to decay to polonium-210. U.S. tobacco companies have known this since the 1950s; an industry study done in the 1960s showed, for instance, that filters do not remove radioactivity from tobacco smoke. As documents released through legal settlements showed, tobacco companies managed to conceal this risk from the public until the 1990s.
And risk is definitely the right word here. For a heavy smoker say one smoking a pack-and-a-half of cigarettes a day some studies estimate that the radiation exposure is equivalent to 300 chest X-rays a year. There are also scientists who believe that polonium-210 is the primary risk factor for lung cancer in smokers not to mention low-level radiation sickness. It's thus not surprising that after the poison was discovered on Arafat's clothes, questions were raised about whether this could be just be evidence of cigarette exposure. After all, the Palestinian leader and many of his colleagues were known to be smokers.
The tobacco theory serves as reminder that sorting out the precise source of polonium-210, eight years after Arafat's death, is likely to be a complicated task. Does it undermine the deliberate poisoning theory? It should at least remind us that there are alternative explanations. But there's one other rather complicating point regarding the tobacco effect. The Israelis had a history of withholding cigarettes from Arafat as a form of punishment, as indicated, at least, in this 2002 story. If they'd maintained that, during his last days in their control, it seems unlikely that he would have been blanketed with radioactive smoke.
What does this tell us? That those pending tests still promise to bear some very interesting news. And that although it's not news smoking cigarettes adds nothing good to anyone's life story.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/1...cigarette/

Arafat and Polonium Poisoning: A Sort-of Update

• BY DEBORAH BLUM
  
• 10.13.13
  
• 12:19 PM
  

On Friday, the news network Al Jazeera made an announcement: the British medical journal, The Lancet, was now supporting the theory that the deceased Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, had died of polonium-210 poisoning.
According to the report, independent scientists had reviewed earlier findings by Swiss scientists and: "endorsed their work, which found high levels of the highly radioactive element in blood, urine, and saliva stains on the Palestinian leader's clothes and toothbrush".
Wow, I thought. I'd been following the Arafat poisoning case for more than a year, ever since Al Jazeera itself first published the results of a news agency investigation on the case. After that investigation, led to the exhumation of Arafat's body, I looked not only at polonium-210′s history as an assassin's agent but at other possibilities for the radioactive traces, such as exposure to cigarette smoke. It had seemed possible but inconclusive to me.
So the fact, that Lancet had published a peer-reviewed endorsement caught my attention. Well, I thought, so much for the other possibilities now we're really talking undeniable homicide. But as it turns out, we're not really having that conversation yet. And part of the problem is that the Lancet article that Al Jazeera is touting is not exactly as described.
In the Al Jazeera piece you'll find a link to the Lancet paper (paywall). It takes you to an essay titled: "Improving Forensic Investigation for Polonium Poisoning."
And this essay is written not by a panel of independent experts but by scientists affiliated with the Institute for Radiation Physics in Lausanne, Switzerland. This is the laboratory that did the initial testing on which Al Jazeera based its report on Arafat's death. And these are the scientists reviewing that work; this essay is far more cautious than the news agency's analysis would lead you to believe.
It notes that the laboratory analyzed 75 samples, 38 from Arafat's clothes and belongings and the rest from reference samples, material known to be polonium free. "Several" of the Arafat samples read notably higher than the reference material but not all. The scientists note that Arafat's illness did not follow some of the classic lines of radiation exposure, such as immune suppression and hair loss. They also acknowledge that this doesn't rule out radiation poisoning; that not all people respond identically and that other symptoms, such as nausea or fatigue, do fit the pattern.
The scientists also acknowledge that the fact Arafat died in 2004 made it difficult to do precise readings of polonium-210 which is known to decay relatively rapidly (It has a half-life of 138.4 days, which means that what they found was breakdown products of that decay rather than the element itself.) "An autopsy would have been useful in this case," the researchers say, and they recommend that in the future, when poison might be suspected, tissue and blood samples be taken and preserved for later investigation.
That's, in fact, the conclusion of the essay. So why would Al Jazeera describe this as all out support for the poisoning theory? The Swiss scientists note that after the exhumation (which apparently they did not recommend) three different teams were assigned to analyze samples from Arafat's body: "Because of legal procedures, the date of publication of the detailed results of the exhumation analyses is unknown."
Perhaps this is just keeping a story alive. And, perhaps, a little bit of wishful thinking. And maybe, just maybe, a hint for more solid information to come.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/1...of-update/

[Peter Lemkin]

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Arafat poison findings sent to Palestinians

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Official says it will study findings from commission probing former PLO leader's death before releasing statement.

Last Modified: 05 Nov 2013








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Yasser Arafat died nine years ago [Reuters]


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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"] A Palestinian official says the commission probing the death of Yasser Arafat has received long-awaited test results from a Swiss laboratory.
Tawfik Tirawi said the report was received Tuesday in Geneva. He said the results will be studied before they are made public.
The longtime Palestinian leader died at a French hospital in 2004, but the cause of death has never been determined. Many Palestinians believe Israel poisoned Arafat, an allegation that Israel denies.
Last year, a Swiss lab discovered traces of polonium-210, a deadly radioactive isotope, on clothes provided by Arafat's widow. More samples were subsequently taken from his remains in the West Bank.
Polonium disintegrates rapidly, and experts have cautioned that too much time may have passed to reach a conclusive result.
A peer-reviewed report was published by the Lancet journal in the UK last month, supporting evidence that suggested he was poisoned with polonium.
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[Carsten Wiethoff]

Al Jazeera writes today that the swiss team found 18 times the normal level of Polonium in Arafat's bones. The widow speaks of proof of a murder.
Israel denies any involvement.
Why am I not surprised?

[Peter Lemkin]

Its scientific/forensic fact now; but I detect that certain people inside the Palestinian cause (perhaps with others outside of it) are dragging their feet on finding who gave him the Polonium and how......as heads will likely role...there were traitors inside and out. Perhaps an Israeli agent inside of the Palestinian camp...perhaps still there in place. Perhaps a Palestinian camp split at that time.

The report was just released to the Press a few hours ago.

From the Guardian moments ago:
The first forensic tests on samples taken from Yasser Arafat's corpse have shown unexpectedly high levels of radioactive polonium-210, suggesting the Palestinian leader could have been poisoned with the rare and lethal substance.
The Swiss scientists who tested Arafat's remains after the exhumation of his body in November 2012 discovered levels of polonium at least 18 times higher than usual in Arafat's ribs, pelvis and in soil that absorbed his bodily fluids.
The Swiss forensic report was handed to representatives of Arafat's widow, Suha Arafat, as well as representatives of the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday. A copy of the report was obtained exclusively by the al-Jazeera TV network, which shared it with the Guardian before publication.
The Swiss report said that even taking into account the eight years since Arafat's death and the quality of specimens taken from bone fragments and tissue scraped from his body and shroud, the results "moderately support the proposition that the death was the consequence of poisoning with polonium-210".
Suha Arafat said the evidence in the report suggested that her then healthy 75-year-old husband, who died in 2004 four weeks after he first fell ill following a meal, was almost certainly murdered by poisoning. She told al-Jazeera: "This is the crime of the century."
Speaking to the Guardian after receiving the report, she said she would press for answers on who was responsible. "It's shocking … I remember how Yasser was shrinking at the hospital, how in his eyes there were a lot of questions. Death is a fate in life, it is everybody's fate, but when it's poison it's terrible. We are mourning him again now."
With Zahwa, 18, her daughter by Arafat, she said she suspected a "conspiracy to get rid of him", adding: "My daughter and I have to know who did it. We will not stop in our quest to find out. I hope the Palestinian Authority goes further on it, searching every single aspect of it. It is of course a political crime." She said: "This is separate from the peace process or talks. Any judicial investigation is separate from the peace process."
David Barclay, a British forensic scientist who had studied the report, told al-Jazeera: "The report contains strong evidence, in my view conclusive evidence, that there's at least 18 times the level of polonium in Arafat's exhumed body than there should be."
He said the report represented "a smoking gun". Barclay said: "It's what killed him. Now we need to find out who was holding the gun at that time," adding: "I would point to him being given a fatal dose. I don't think there's any doubt at all."
The Israeli government, however, dismissed the report. "The Swiss findings are not conclusive," said Yigal Palmor, a foreign ministry spokesman.
"Even if they did find traces of polonium that could indicate poisoning, there's no evidence of how that poisoning occurred. Before the Palestinian Authority jumps to conclusions, there are many questions still to be answered.
"Israel is not involved in any way. There's no way the Palestinians can stick this on us. It's unreasonable and unsupported by facts. We will see yet another round of accusations, but there's no proof."
Dov Weissglass, a former aide to Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister at the time of Arafat's death, also denied Israeli involvement. "To the best of my knowledge, we had no hand in this," he said, adding that neither the prime minister nor the Israeli security services had played any part in the Palestinian leader's demise.
"By the end of 2004, we had no interest in harming him. By then, Arafat was marginalised, his control over Palestinian life was minimal. So there was no logic, no reason."
Danny Rubinstein, a journalist and author of a book about Arafat, had a different memory of events. In the weeks and months before Arafat's death, he said, people in Sharon's inner circle talked constantly about how to get rid of him. "For me, it was very clear from the beginning. Every day this was the topic should we expel him, or kill him, or bomb the Muqata [Arafat's HQ]. It was obvious to me that they would find a way."
Palmor said that among the scientists who tested Arafat's remains only the French team were independent. The Swiss were commissioned by Suha Arafat, and the Russians by the Palestinian Authority, he said. "These results should be taken with a few grains of salt. This story is still as mysterious as it was on day one."
Tawfik Tirawi, head of the Palestinian committee investigating Arafat's death, did not respond to a request from comment. But a senior Palestinian leader, Hanan Ashrawi, said: "This report confirms the suspicions that we've had all along. We know Arafat was killed, now we know how. And we know who had the means, the opportunity and the motive. Justice must now take its course."
Arafat died in a French military hospital on 11 November 2004,. He had been transferred there from his headquarters in the West Bank after his health deteriorated over weeks, beginning with severe nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea around four hours after eating dinner on 12 October. French doctors have said he died of a massive stroke and had suffered from a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC. But the records were inconclusive about what brought about the DIC. No autopsy was carried out.
Allegations that Arafat may have been poisoned emerged immediately after his death and the claim was raised again by al-Jazeera TV last summer, following a nine-month investigation culminating in the filmWhat Killed Arafat?
Al-Jazeera said it was given access to a duffel bag of Arafat's personal effects by his widow, which it passed to a Swiss institute. Swiss toxicological tests on those samples including hair from a hat, saliva from a toothbrush, urine droplets on underpants and blood on a hospital hat found that the belongings had elevated traces of polonium-210, the lethal substance used to kill the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.
The Swiss institute said Arafat's bones would have to be tested to get a clearer answer, warning that polonium decayed fast and an autopsy needed to be done quickly. In August last year, French prosecutors opened a murder inquiry into Arafat's death. In November, Arafat's corpse was exhumed from its mausoleum in Ramallah in the presence of three international teams of scientists: the Swiss team, a French team that was part of the Paris judicial investigation and a Russian team.
The Swiss team's report states that they carried out toxicological tests on Arafat's "almost skeletonised body along with residues from his shroud". The samples, including fragments of bones taken from his left ribs and pelvis as well as remnants of tissue from the abdominal cavity and grave soil, showed "unexpectedly high" activity of polonium-210.
Suha Arafat's lawyer, Saad Djebbar, told the Guardian the Swiss report was "evidence that there was a crime committed". He said he had handed the Swiss report to French investigators, whose inquiry is ongoing. French scientists conducted their own tests as part of the legal investigation but have not published findings as the inquiry continues.
Arafat's daughter, Zahwa, a student of international relations in Malta, told the Guardian: "I want to find out who did it and their motive for doing it." She said she trusted the French investigation to shed light on that.