What Killed Arafat?

[Keith Millea]

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[TD="class: DivTitles"]What Killed Arafat?
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[TD]http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/what...74794.html
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[TD="class: articleTitle"]Tests hint at possible Arafat poisoning
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[TD]Nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera discovers rare, radioactive polonium on ex-Palestinian leader's final belongings.

Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 03 Jul 2012 16:27

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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"]It was a scene that riveted the world for weeks: The ailing Yasser Arafat, first besieged by Israeli tanks in his Ramallah compound, then shuttled to Paris, where he spent his final days undergoing a barrage of medical tests in a French military hospital.

Eight years after his death, it remains a mystery exactly what killed the longtime Palestinian leader. Tests conducted in Paris found no obvious traces of poison in Arafat's system. Rumors abound about what might have killed him cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, even allegations that he was infected with HIV.

A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed that none of those rumors were true: Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004.

More importantly, tests reveal that Arafat's final personal belongings his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element. Those personal effects, which were analyzed at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, were variously stained with Arafat's blood, sweat, saliva and urine. The tests carried out on those samples suggested that there was a high level of polonium inside his body when he died.

"I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr. Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids," said Dr. Francois Bochud, the director of the institute.

Unsupported polonium

The institute studied Arafat's personal effects, which his widow provided to Al Jazeera, the first time they had been examined by a laboratory. Doctors did not find any traces of common heavy metals or conventional poisons, so they turned their attention to more obscure elements, including polonium.

About the institute

The study of Arafat's medical file and belongings was carried out at the University Hospital Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The university's Centre of Legal Medicine is considered one of the best forensic pathology labs in the world.

It has studied evidence for the United Nations in East Timor and the International Criminal Court in the former Yugoslavia, and it investigated the death of Princess Diana, among other well-known personalities.

It is a highly radioactive element used, among other things, to power spacecraft. Marie Curie discovered it in 1898, and her daughter Irene was among the first people it killed: She died of leukemia several years after an accidental polonium exposure in her laboratory.
At least two people connected with Israel's nuclear program also reportedly died after exposure to the element, according to the limited literature on the subject.

But polonium's most famous victim was Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian spy-turned-dissident who died in London in 2006 after a lingering illness. A British inquiry found that he was poisoned with polonium slipped into his tea at a sushi restaurant.

There is little scientific consensus about the symptoms of polonium poisoning, mostly because there are so few recorded cases. Litvinenko suffered severe diarrhea, weight loss, and vomiting, all of which were symptoms Arafat exhibited in the days and weeks after he initially fell ill.

Animal studies have found similar symptoms, which lingered for weeks - depending on the dosage until the subject died. "The primary radiation target… is the gastrointestinal tract," said an American study conducted in 1991, "activating the vomiting centre' in the brainstem."

Scientists in Lausanne found elevated levels of the element on Arafat's belongings - in some cases, they were ten times higher than those on control subjects, random samples which were tested for comparison.

The lab's results were reported in millibecquerels (mBq), a scientific unit used to measure radioactivity.

Polonium is present in the atmosphere, but the natural levels that accumulate on surfaces barely register, and the element disappears quickly. Polonium-210, the isotope found on Arafat's belongings, has a half-life of 138 days, meaning that half of the substance decays roughly every four-and-a-half months. "Even in case of a poisoning similar to the Litvinenko case, only traces of the order of a few [millibecquerels] were expected to be found in [the] year 2012," the institute noted in its report to Al Jazeera.

But Arafat's personal effects, particularly those with bodily fluids on them, registered much higher levels of the element. His toothbrushes had polonium levels of 54mBq; the urine stain on his underwear, 180mBq. (Another man's pair of underwear, used as a control, measured just 6.7mBq.)

Further tests, conducted over a three-month period from March until June, concluded that most of that polonium between 60 and 80 per cent, depending on the sample was "unsupported," meaning that it did not come from natural sources.
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[Peter Lemkin]

Arafat was poisoned by radioactive substance
According to a report by Al-Jazeera, Swiss experts found high levels of polonium, a highly radioactive element, in Arafat's personal belongings.
By Haaretz | Jul.03, 2012 | 9:45 PM

The final days of Yasser Arafat
By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
Jul.03,2012 | 9:45 PM

Eight years after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Al-Jazeera network published on Tuesday findings of an investigation which attempts to shed light on the circumstances of his death. According to the report, Swiss experts found high levels of polonium, a highly radioactive element, in his personal belongings.

Arafat's death on November 11, 2004 had generated no small number of conspiracy theories, including poisoning by Israel and even HIV.

Al-Jazeera's report cites experts from the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, who examined Arafat's belonging. "Tests reveal that Arafat's final personal belongings his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element," Al-Jazeera reported.

The tests that were conducted in Paris immediately after Arafat's death found no evidence of poisoning. Al-Jazeera's research indicated that Arafat was in good health until falling suddenly ill in October.

In 2005, Haaretz reported that Israeli experts who analyzed the report drawn up by the medical team that treated Yasser Arafat in Paris say that the most likely possibility is that he was poisoned in a dinner meal on October 12, 2004.

[video]http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/whatkilledarafat/2012/07/201273181058734888.html[/video]

[Peter Lemkin]

As a trained environmental toxicologist it is yet too early to say for sure, but......all the evidence leans STRONGLY toward poisoning with the exotic poison of radioactive Polonium!...stay tuned. His wife has just given permission for an exhumation and test on his remains. The clothing he wore in his last few days all point to Polonium poisoning. The obvious question now is who done it!? As to who'd want him dead is all too easy.

[Magda Hassan]

Interesting. The British would say it is the Russians who use this, a la Litvinenko. But I find it unlikely that the Russians have any interest in doing away with Arafat whom they had supported always. On the other hand there are reason to doubt the UK line on the Litvinenko assassination being connected to Russia so may be it is the same Western source in each case. I wonder if polonium can be traced to batches like anthrax can?

[Albert Doyle]

The US and Israel bringing rule of law and democracy to the Middle East during the War On Terror!

[Peter Lemkin]

Interesting. The British would say it is the Russians who use this, a la Litvinenko. But I find it unlikely that the Russians have any interest in doing away with Arafat whom they had supported always. On the other hand there are reason to doubt the UK line on the Litvinenko assassination being connected to Russia so may be it is the same Western source in each case. I wonder if polonium can be traced to batches like anthrax can?

Polonium can't be traced per se, unless you can find something that it was mixed with that might be traceable. Israel seems to stand out like a sore thumb as the most likely to be behind this, with the USA a close second. A 'friendly' spy agency might have done it for either of them (as a favor), widening the circle quite a bit. Any nation that has a nuclear program can get Polonium, and it takes only a very small amount to poison someone. I did note at the time of Arafat's death that he mysteriously and quickly faded away, of no apparent illness. The autopsy should be soon. I'll bet the real perpetrators are desperately trying to do some body snatching now. Sinister world we live in. So glad we won over the Nazis and all of their bad ethical qualities only to adopt them all ourselves. :joystick: And don't forget all the 'terrorists' we fight now who 'hate us for our freedoms'. Planet Earth's human oligarchy seems at new moral lows again - and sadly never rose much above those lows. Its up to the average person to take over from these thugs running just about every major country. Of course, this will hardly make news in the USA where Al Jazeera is informally banned on all cable TV [how most Americans get their TV news]. Anyway, I think the case for Polonium poisoning of Arafat will be conclusive. To make a clean case of who done it will not be so easy unless someone or some clue comes to light. That said, if you simply ask, who benefited...it rather narrows it down quite a bit to those who most often shout 'terrorist' at OTHERS.

Well, the only good thing is that Polonium is not on the 'radar' of forensic toxicologists a bit more....
I guess Al Jazeera might just happen to be bombed again soon for funding this little research project....

[Peter Lemkin]

No surprise, but most of the 'MSM' haven't picked up the very well documented story......ever was thus....:mexican:

[Peter Lemkin]

I just checked and see no stories in the 'western MSM'....yet. This short piece from the Times of India:
DOHA: Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004, was poisoned by polonium, according to the findings of research carried out in Switzerland and cited in an Al-Jazeera report on Tuesday.

The analysis focused on biological samples taken from the late Palestinian leader's belongings given to his wife Suha by the military hospital in Paris where he died, according to Francois Bochud, head of the Institute of Radiation Physics at University of Lausanne.

"The conclusion was that we did find some significant polonium that was present in these samples," Bochud said.

Arafat died in 2004, following several weeks of treatment. At that time Palestinian officials said he had been poisoned by Israel , but an inconclusive probe in 2005 ruled out cancer , AIDS or poisoning.

[Magda Hassan]

Israel will deny it of course and nothing will be done about it either. But it is good to know and adds another black mark of thousands against the Israeli state. Sooner or later the edifice will fall.

[Peter Lemkin]

The Palestinian Authority has just officially called for an independent and international investigation.....watch Israel, the UK, USA and some others try to stop any such investigation! Saeb Erekat just spoke on Al Jazeera and was cautious in his conclusions, but could hardly contain his upset and excitement at the news!