And if Yasser Arafat had been poisoned? Here's the astonishing assertion of a nine-month investigation conducted by Al Jazeera and broadcast Tuesday night. According to the Qatari , former president of the Palestinian Authority would have died 11 November 2004 as a result of poisoning plutonium. To reinforce its claim, the journalists got hold of his last belongings - his clothes, his toothbrush and even his iconic keffiyeh - still soaked in blood, sweat, saliva and urine of Palestinian rai. These items were then submitted to the Institute of Radiophysics Lausanne, Switzerland . And the results are enlightening. "I can confirm you have measured a high amount, and unexplained, polonium-210 in property of Yasser Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids," says Dr. Francois Bochud , director of the Institute. Is an invisible substance but ultra-toxic, he says, is accessible only to "people who are interested or build nuclear weapons." This finding could explain, why would Arafat suddenly became ill on 12 October 2004, before giving up the ghost, a month later, at the Percy Hospital in Clamart.
"Military Secret"
Syndrome reminiscent of the Russian double agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 in London, after also being poisoned with polonium. But "even in cases of poisoning similar to that (...) Litvinenko, said the Swiss, only traces of the order of a few millibecquerels were found in 2012". Now, according to the report, the toothbrush of Yasser Arafat contained 54 mBq of polonium, the urine stain on her underwear, 180 mBq. To bolster their findings, scientists from Lausanne wanted to compare their results with samples of blood and urine of the former Rais, owned by the Percy hospital. Now, according to the French settlement, they were all destroyed. Similarly, many of the doctors who followed Yasser Arafat refused to talk, arguing that if their patient was a "military secret". Finally, no autopsy was performed on the body of former leader. The revelations have come out of his silence Suha Arafat, who asked the Palestinian Authority to exhume the body buried in Ramallah, West Bank. The widow of the president took the opportunity to engage in the Qatari original medical records of her husband. She said it indicates that the cause of the death of Yasser Arafat is the "destruction of the red cells, without stating a reason." But the Swiss doctors are formal. The former Palestinian leader did not die of cirrhosis, cancer or even AIDS, as suggested by many rumors after his death. "At least I did something to explain the Palestinian people (...) that it was not a natural death, but a crime," concluded Suha Arafat.
A "crime" (Suha Arafat)
"It seems clear that it is the State of Israel who is accused by this report, "said the Point.fr Denis Charbit, professor of political science at the Open University of Israel. According to political scientist, if the Jewish state did engage in the past targeted assassinations against those who were attacking his interests, he would have had, however, no incentive to remove Yasser Arafat . In 2004, four years after the start of the second Intifada, the Palestinian Authority president looks considerably weakened. He lives entrenched in his Muqata in Ramallah, surrounded by the Israeli army, which the judge responsible for the violence. Marginalized in the international arena, the Palestinian leader is no longer considered a legitimate interlocutor. Thus, Tel Aviv and Washington have imposed in 2003 to a Prime Minister Yasser Arafat, in the person of Mahmoud Abbas , the future president of the Authority. Meanwhile, Ariel Sharon (since 2006 plunged into a deep coma, Ed) can boast of having made a step towards peace by announcing in late 2003, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which will take effect in 2005. "If Sharon wanted to remove Yasser Arafat, it was during the war in Lebanon in 1982, "said for his part Jean-François Legrain, a researcher at the CNRS-Gremmo (Group research and studies on the Mediterranean and the Middle East). "In 2004, the continuation in power of a prisoner of Yasser Arafat's headquarters was originally one Israeli interests," added the specialist of the Middle East. "Thus, the difficulties between the two parties could be attributed by Israel to rais, when Mahmoud Abbas, as Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad , Finance, needed to maintain the duration of a Palestinian Authority, which had Acting more as the name. And the prospect of a sovereign state is found in the more remote, "says Jean-François Legrain.
"Gunfight interpalestinien" (researcher)
The disappearance of rai in late 2004 encouraged the entry of Hamas in the political center stage. A new deal that led to a real fratricidal war with Fatah, after the Islamist victory in the parliamentary elections of 2006. Can we therefore assume that the organization, now in power in Gaza, would have precipitated the end of Arafat? Reject a hypothesis that Jean-François Legrain: "Hamas has never resorted to assassinations of Fatah," said the specialist. "Such acts have been perpetrated only by members of Fatah them, but the poisoning is not part of their practices, the Kalash are privileged." Thus, Jean-Pierre Legrain sees it in this case, returning periodically to the headlines, a "settling of accounts between the widow staff Arafat and the Palestinian Authority". "The only answer lies in the medical record, possessed and Suha Arafat's nephew Rais, Nasser al-Qidwa," says the researcher."But it is unthinkable that the Percy hospital, also specialized in radiography did not mention traces of polonium if there really." Hence the question: why Arafat's widow asks it only today, more than seven years after the death of her husband, to analyze his body? The answer is expected soon. After first claiming merely the formation of an international commission of inquiry, the Palestinian Authority has finally agree to exhume the remains. The Institute of Radio Lausanne should be contacted in the coming days to come and collect the samples needed.
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