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Tunisia joins in call to investigate possible polonium poisoning of Arafat

Palestinian call for Arafat death probe backed by Tunisia http://www.brecorder.com/world/middle-east/65869-palestinian-call-for-arafat-death-probe-backed-by-tunis-.html , 05 JULY 2012 RAMALLAH: A Palestinian call for an international probe into Yasser
Arafat’s death won official backing from Tunisia on Thursday, after a report showed the leader may have been poisoned.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki told the official Voice of Palestine radio on Thursday that such an enquiry could finally “close the file” on Arafat’s mysterious death.

And Tunisia called for the Arab League to convene.

“We call for an urgent meeting of Arab League foreign ministers and the creation of an international committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death” of Arafat, Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem told private radio station Mosaique FM.

“We are waiting for this Tunisian initiative to be translated into
action and for the meeting to be held,” Malki said.

“Then we will ask for an international investigation committee to be
formed similar to the one formed into the assassination of (Lebanese
Prime Minister) Rafiq Hariri so we can solve so many of the unanswered
questions,” he added.

“We want to show that the PA (Palestinian Authority) leadership and
people are all anxious to know all the details surrounding Arafat’s
death, so we can close this file.”

On Tuesday, Al-Jazeera television broadcast the results of a
nine-month probe it commissioned into the 2004 death of the iconic
Palestinian leader that indicated he could have been poisoned with the
radioactive substance polonium.

The next day Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas endorsed exhuming
Arafat’s body from its mausoleum at the Palestinian presidency
headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah for a forensic
examination.

The supreme Palestinian Islamic authority, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
Mohammed Hussein, said there was no religious law forbidding Arafat’s
exhumation.

“If it is necessary to examine a body for the needs of an inquiry and
that requires its full or partial retrieval there is nothing to
prevent that,” he told AFP on Thursday.

Tunis hosted the Palestine Liberation Organisation, of which Arafat
was the chairman, after it was expelled from Lebanon during the 1982
Israeli invasion and until the 1994 launch of Palestinian autonomy.

“We owe a debt to that great man, who had such an influence on the
Palestinian national cause,” Abdessalem said.

The Institute of Radiation Physics at the University of Lausanne
tested items belonging to Arafat at Al-Jazeera’s request, including
clothing which was handed to his widow Suha by the Paris military
hospital where he died in November 2004 at the age of 75.

Suha Arafat gave Al-Jazeera permission to take the items, which
contained strands of Arafat’s hair and traces of sweat, urine and
blood, for testing at several European laboratories, including the
Switzerland institute, which reported finding high levels of polonium.

Polonium, which is highly toxic, was used to kill Russian former spy
turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 after
drinking tea laced with the substance at a London restaurant.

Suha Arafat rejected an autopsy after her husband’s death but has
since changed her position and on Wednesday told AFP that she was
“immediately to send a formal letter to the Swiss laboratory that
conducted the tests, to authorise collection of samples of the remains
of the martyr Arafat to verify the results.”

The nephew of the deceased, Nasser al-Qidwa, another family
representative whose consent is required, has not yet formally
expressed his wishes.

July 12, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AFRICA, secrets,lies and civil liberties