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What Killed Arafat? - Aljazeera Transparency Unit

Al Jazeera has spent nine months investigating the cause of Yasser Arafat's death, which after more than seven years still had not been positively identified.

The material presented here includes the late Palestinian leader's medical file from the final weeks of his life; it includes reports from doctors in both Ramallah and in France, where he ultimately died. Al Jazeera was also given access to his final belongings, everything from his slippers to his iconic kaffiyeh.

All of this was reviewed by some of the top forensic pathologists in the world, in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Their investigation found abnormal levels of polonium, a rare and highly radioactive substance, on Arafat's belongings, most of which were stained with his bodily fluids - suggesting that the radioactive substance might have been inside his body.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Jul 4th, 2012 at 01:22:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Oops. If someone can trace that polonium to Dimona....

But why would they do something so stupid ? Polonium poisoning is a signature killing, if they're gonna do that, why not just fire yet more missiles at him till they killed him ? Just as subtle


keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Wed Jul 4th, 2012 at 03:00:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
One could hypothesize that the delivery was the message.

But in reality is was probably hubris.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Wed Jul 4th, 2012 at 04:22:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Signature killing? It took 8 years for them to notice - isn't that subtle enough?
by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Wed Jul 4th, 2012 at 05:08:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Perhaps they didn't count on nobody noticing. I dunno, there's better ways of killing someone if that's all you want to do.

Sarin would do as well

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Wed Jul 4th, 2012 at 08:48:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
At the time, there was lots and lots of speculation that he had been poisoned. People had heard of sarin back then (this was after the Tokyo attacks), but they hadn't heard of polonium. In fact, if it hadn't been for Litvinenko (which happened later), the reactions of our superb MSM to the new allegations would have been to dismiss them as nonsense (who ever heard of anybody being harmed by a bit of - what was it called - polonium?)
by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Wed Jul 4th, 2012 at 09:03:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
and if it came out, you could always claim that he was trying to get his hands on nuclear material

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Jul 4th, 2012 at 01:39:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Body to be exhumed
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, sees no reason why Yasser Arafat's body should not be exhumed following an Al Jazeera report that he may have died of poisoning, his spokesman said on Wednesday.
by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Wed Jul 4th, 2012 at 07:31:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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