Yasser Arafat was 'poisoned with polonium' drug

Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned with the same drug used to kill ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London.

14:48 15 October 2013

A year after his Yasser Arafat’s widow asked judges in France to investigate on the death of her husband, the former Palestinian leader, scientists have now revealed that Arafat may have been in fact murdered and poisoned with polonium 210.

This is the same, somewhat hard to detect drug used to kill ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London.

After falling ill for a few weeks, Mr Arafat died in the hospital in France in 2004 aged 75.

Scientists in Switzerland have now said: “Several tests on samples of bodily fluids contained an unexplained higher level of polonium 210, compared to control samples.
"These findings support the possibility of Arafat’s poisoning with polonium 210.”

His widow, Suha, 50, believes that her husband was poisoned because he was seen in Israel and the US as an “obstacle to peace” in the Middle East.

Arafat clashed with Israel for decades while performing his job as chief of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Palestinian National Authority.