(Washington Post) William Booth - On Wednesday, a team of Swiss experts revealed that tests on PLO chairman Yasser Arafat's exhumed remains "moderately support the proposition that the death was the consequence of poisoning with polonium-210," a highly radioactive substance 250,000 times as toxic as cyanide. Before his death in a French hospital on Nov. 11, 2004, Arafat was confined to his Ramallah compound by the Israeli military while the Second Intifada was raging. The head of the Russian Federal Medico-Biological Agency, Vladimir Uiba, whose team also conducted tests on Arafat's remains, was quoted by the Interfax news agency last month as saying that the PLO leader "could not have been poisoned by polonium. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Wednesday that the Swiss findings were "more soap opera than science," calling them part of the ongoing battle between Arafat's widow and the PA. Israeli officials have repeatedly denied that their government had anything to do with Arafat's death.
2013-11-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive