Ramallah: The remains of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were exhumed from his grave on Tuesday so international forensic experts could search for additional clues to his death, Palestinian officials said.
The remains were taken from the massive mausoleum in the West Bank city of Ramallah where Arafat was buried and moved to a nearby mosque so Palestinian doctors could take samples from his bones, the officials said. Under Islam, only Muslims can handle a Muslim's remains.
The samples will be handed over to French, Swiss and Russian experts who have flown in for the exhumation and who will examine them in their home countries, the officials said. Earlier, samples were also taken from Arafat's bedroom, office and personal belongings, they said.
The Palestinian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter with the media. The new investigation into Arafat's death was sparked earlier this year by the discovery of a lethal radioactive substance, polonium, on clothing said to be his....
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11:45 AM, Nov 27, 2012
Paris: French prosecutors opened a murder inquiry into the death of Yasser Arafat on Tuesday, his widow's lawyer said, after she and a TV investigation raised new questions about whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned. There have long been rumors in the Arab world that Arafat was poisoned, and a Swiss lab's recent finding of elevated levels of polonium-210, a rare and highly lethal radioactive substance, on Arafat's clothing has...
09:27 AM, Aug 29, 2012
Ramallah: Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died after consuming an unknown poison, a Jordanian doctor claimed on Thursday. Arafat's medical reports suggest that he was poisoned by a toxic substance, but it was not examined at that time, Xinhua quoted Abdullah al-Basheer as saying. Al-Basheer, who launched an inquiry into the case, was speaking to reporters in West Bank. Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's successor, ordered a probe after al-Jazeera TV concluded...
10:47 AM, Jul 13, 2012
