09-07-2012, 08:59 PM
Doctors in Lausanne, and elsewhere, also ruled out a range of other possible causes for Arafat's death, based on his original medical file, which Ms. Arafat also provided to Al Jazeera. Their examination ruled out many of the other causes of death that have been rumored over the last eight years.
"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.
With those avenues of inquiry closed, Arafat's body itself would be the last remaining source of conclusive evidence. Exhuming it would require approval from the Palestinian Authority; shipping bone samples outside of the West Bank would require permission from the Israeli government.
Whatever the outcome, Ms. Arafat said she hopes further tests would "remove a lot of doubt" about her husband's still-mysterious death.
"We got into this very, very painful conclusion, but at least this removes this great burden on me, on my chest," she said. "At least I've done something to explain to the Palestinian people, to the Arab and Muslim generation all over the world, that it was not a natural death, it was a crime."
A conclusive finding that Arafat was poisoned with polonium would not, of course, explain who killed him. It is a difficult element to produce, though it requires a nuclear reactor and the signature of the polonium in Arafat's bones could provide some insight about its origin.
"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.
With those avenues of inquiry closed, Arafat's body itself would be the last remaining source of conclusive evidence. Exhuming it would require approval from the Palestinian Authority; shipping bone samples outside of the West Bank would require permission from the Israeli government.
Whatever the outcome, Ms. Arafat said she hopes further tests would "remove a lot of doubt" about her husband's still-mysterious death.
"We got into this very, very painful conclusion, but at least this removes this great burden on me, on my chest," she said. "At least I've done something to explain to the Palestinian people, to the Arab and Muslim generation all over the world, that it was not a natural death, it was a crime."
A conclusive finding that Arafat was poisoned with polonium would not, of course, explain who killed him. It is a difficult element to produce, though it requires a nuclear reactor and the signature of the polonium in Arafat's bones could provide some insight about its origin.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass