The death of Cde Yasser Arafat, the former Palestinian Liberation Organization leader on 29 October 2004 has of late received a renewed interest. This is because of the detection of high traces of polonium-210 on his clothing and personal items used by Arafat in his final days by Switzerland's Institute of Radiation Physics. The items were provided by Arafat's widow Suha. This has raised speculation that Arafat was assassinated via radiation poison just like former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London. This has added weight to the suspicions which had been around for quite some time that Arafat was actually murdered. The detection of polonium-210 means that his possible assassination was done by a state actor with sophisticated nuclear and military capabilities. Of course the State of Israel is the main suspect because of having the capabilities to do so and also they wanted Arafat "removed" from the political scene. 14 months before Arafat's death, Israel's security cabinet decided to "remove" the Palestinian leader using deliberately hate language which could mean expulsion or killing.
A lot of suspicious events occurred leading to and after the death of Arafat. No autopsy was conducted on his body after his death considering the high stature of Arafat and how his illness was sudden. In medical files released, he was first diagnosed with viral gastroenteritis after he suddenly became ill a month before his demise. He died in a Paris hospital, but the hospital destroyed all of Arafat's medical specimens breaking protocol of keeping all medical specimens a certain period after one is deceased. So what's the way forward? Last week, a senior Palestinian official Saeb Ereket said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has made a final decision to allow an autopsy to be finally conducted. Though the body has decayed by now, it can still offer interesting insights into how Arafat died especially if polonium-210 was involved. Let's hope the investigations yield some conclusive results.
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