French judge to launch probe into Arafat’s death: source

France named a judge to launch probe abroad into iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s death, a source told AFP.

The Palestinians on Tuesday began work to open the grave of Arafat ahead of an exhumation of his body for a murder probe, a source close to his family told AFP.

“Today they started removing concrete and stones from Arafat’s mausoleum and the work will last for almost 15 days,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“There are several phases,” he said, referring to the opening of the tomb ahead of a visit by French, Swiss and Russian experts to forensically test Arafat’s remains over suspicions he was poisoned with radioactive substance polonium.

“It starts with the removal of stone and concrete and cutting the iron (framework) until they reach the soil that covers the body, which will not be removed until the arrival of the French prosecutors, Swiss experts and Russian investigators,” the source said.

On Monday, Arafat’s mausoleum, which is located at the Muqataa presidential headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah was screened from public view with blue tarpaulins ahead of the operation to open the grave.

The process of taking samples is expected to begin at the end of the month after the French and Swiss delegations arrive on November 26, officials have said.

“Because of Arafat’s position and his status, no-one will be allowed, under any circumstances, to photograph his body while the samples are taken,” the source told AFP.

When Arafat died at the age of 75 in a French military hospital near Paris on November 11, 2004, French doctors were unable to say what had killed him.


“There’s full cooperation these days between us and the French investigators and Swiss experts, and also from the Russian government,” Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, told a rain-drenched ceremony on the eighth anniversary of the death in France of the former guerrilla who led Palestinians’ campaign to create a state through years of war and peace.

Abbas asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for Moscow’s help during talks in Jordan last week, Palestinian sources told Reuters.

Allegations of foul play have long surrounded the demise of Arafat. Many Palestinians are convinced he was poisoned by Israel.

High levels of polonium-210 

The case returned to the headlines in July when a Swiss institute said it had discovered high levels of the radioactive element polonium-210 on Arafat’s clothing supplied by his widow Suha, who called for exhumation of her husband’s body.

Polonium is the radioactive substance found to have killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.

Three French forensic experts are expected to visit Arafat’s limestone sepulcher in the West Bank capital of Ramallah on Nov. 20, and investigating magistrates plan to visit four days later, a diplomatic source told Reuters.

Headed by the intelligence chief at the time of Arafat’s death, the Palestinians’ own forensic team has repeatedly butted heads with French investigators over their supervision of the exhumation, proposed for this month.