RAMALLAH, July 12, 2012 (WAFA) – The Palestinian Authority said Thursday that it will do all it can to reveal the truth behind the death of former President Yasser Arafat.
Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said at a press conference attended by Abdullah al-Bashir, the Jordanian doctor who heads the medical team investigating Arafat’s death, Tawfiq Tirawi, head of the national committee investigating the death, and Minister of Justice Ali Muhanna that President Mahmoud Abbas wants all the facts regarding Arafat’s death revealed.
“There will be no obstacle put in the way of any party seeking to reveal the truth,” he said, stressing that Abbas has ordered full cooperation with the medical team looking into the causes that led to Arafat’s illness and death in November 2004.
Bashir said that his team, which was set up several years ago, has collected and studied all the medical reports published on Arafat’s death, including the French hospital report where Arafat was admitted and died.
“The French report said that specialized doctors were not able to find a reason or known illness that can explain the causes for the death,” he said. “They said that developments in the illness could not be explained in the framework of pathology,” he said.
A report published by al-Jazeera concluded that Arafat has died by poisoning. It said a Swiss laboratory that carried out tests on Arafat’s belongings found out that there were traces of polonium, a radioactive material, on the belongings indicting very strongly that Arafat died of poisoning.
Bashir said he does not rule out the possibility of poisoning but that tests are needed to be done on Arafat’s body to get conclusive results.
He said that there are normally legal and logistical procedure to exhume the body, but that should be done by a qualified international party.
“We are ready to work with the Swiss lab to take samples from Arafat’s body,” he said.
However, Muhanna said that no special request has yet been made to exhume the body and once a request is made, it will be immediately approved.
He said that they are waiting for the Swiss laboratory to make the request because exhuming the body requires that it should be done by a specialized team.
Tirawi stressed that all Arafat family members, as well as the political and religious circles have agreed to exhume the body.
He accused Israel of being behind Arafat’s death, explaining that statements by Israeli leaders at the time indicated that they all wanted to get rid of Arafat.
He did not rule out the possibility that Israel has used Palestinians as tools to reach Arafat and put the poison in his food.
“The Palestinian people want to know the truth about Arafat’s death,” he said. “We should do everything to reach the truth.”
M.S.
