Yasser Arafat’s body to be exhumed, re-examined
In this handout image provided by the Palestinian Press Office (PPO), Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) (centre L) and King Abdullah II of Jordan (center R) lay a wreath at the tomb of the late President Yasser Arafat on November 21, 2011 in Ramallah, West Bank. Arafat’s body is set to be exhumed and re-examined at the end of November.
Yasser Arafat's body will be exhumed and subjected to an autopsy to determine if the former Palestinian leader was poisoned with polonium-210, according to a French official speaking to the Associated Press.
Two teams, one from France and another from Switzerland, will fly to Ramallah at the end of November to re-examine Arafat's body.
The renewed interest in the Middle Eastern politician's cause of death comes after a Swiss lab recently discovered traces of the deadly radioactive isotope polonium-210 on clothing believed to belong to Arafat, the AP reported.
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Suha, Arafat's 48-year-old widow, also requested a murder investigation into her husband's death in France this summer, saying that she believes he was poisoned because he was "an obstacle to peace," the Daily Beast reported.
Arafat's official cause of death was a stroke, but the cause of what ailed him in the last weeks of his life has remained unclear, the Telegraph reported.
The Palestinian authority approved the exhumation in July.
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