Swiss Lab Finds Arafat Ingested Lethal Polonium Before Death

WSJ: Results Support Theory that Former Palestinian Leader Was Poisoned

LAUSANNE, Switzerland—Scientific findings suggesting that the Arab icon Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death nine years ago sent ripples across the Middle East and sparked concern about peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which have shown signs of stalling in recent days.

A team of Swiss scientists said Thursday that their research led them to the conclusion that the longtime Palestinian leader likely died from the ingestion of radioactive polonium.

Mr. Arafat's widow, Suha Arafat, indicated this week that she believed Israel was behind a plot against her husband.

 

And Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demanded a wider investigation on Thursday into the circumstances behind his predecessor's death.

"Abbas gave his instructions to the relevant sides to continue with the investigation to find out the reasons behind Arafat's death," said a spokesman for the Palestinian leader.

Israeli officials quickly denied any role in the death and questioned the veracity of the Swiss team's work. "To say that Israel poisoned Arafat, this is complete nonsense, and a deceitful lie," said Israeli Energy Minister Silvan Shalom.

U.S. and European officials have also questioned the veracity of the Swiss team's report, in part because of the time that has lapsed since Mr. Arafat's death.

The Swiss doctors acknowledged that their work was hurt by the lack of biological samples from Mr. Arafat and the corruption of some evidence over the past nine years. They also said their study wasn't conclusive, and called for additional investigations to conclusively establish the cause of death.

Still the revelations could inject a new note of tension into Israel-Palestinian peace talks.

Secretary of State John Kerry visited Israel and the Palestinian territories this week in a bid to push ahead negotiations between the two sides that are slated for a nine-month timeframe.

In recent days, however, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas have suggested that the process is stalling, and they charged each other with undermining the prospects for peace.

"I'm concerned about their progress because I see Palestinians continuing with incitement, continuing to create artificial crises, continuing to avoid...the historic decisions that are needed," Mr. Netanyahu said Tuesday before meeting with Mr. Kerry.

Mr. Arafat's 2004 death in Paris has fueled years of speculation and conspiracy theories. The French coroner formally cited a cerebral hemorrhage as the cause of death, but a complete autopsy was never conducted.

The medical team from Switzerland's University Center for Legal Medicine first raised the prospect that Mr. Arafat was poisoned by polonium last year when it cooperated with Qatar's Al Jazeera television network on a documentary about the death.

Mrs. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority then hired the Swiss medical team, as well as additional forensic investigators from France and Russia, to conduct more exhaustive studies.

Earlier this year, Mr. Arafat's grave was exhumed. The Swiss report said Mr. Arafat's remains and burial soil contained elevated levels of polonium-210.

At a news conference in Lausanne, two of the Swiss medical investigators cited the probability Mr. Arafat died by ingesting radioactive polonium.

Polonium was used to kill KGB agent-turned-Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. It can be a byproduct of the chemical processing of uranium, but usually is made artificially in a nuclear reactor or a particle accelerator.

Israel has a nuclear-research center and is widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal, though the country has never confirmed or denied it.

The Swiss doctors said they received through Mrs. Arafat access to her husband's medical records and DNA samples and that they conducted toxicology and radiological tests. Some of this was done by screening clothes and bags Mr. Arafat brought with him to Paris from Ramallah after he became ill.

They said the time frame over which Mr. Arafat became ill and died, roughly a month, was consistent with how animals injected with polonium react. The doctors also said it was inconceivable to them that Mr. Arafat ingested polonium by mistake and said their studies indicated the radiological material was a processed form, rather than natural.

"Our results reasonably support the poisoning theory," said Francois Bochud, who wrote the 108-page study on Mr. Arafat's death as part of the Swiss team.

"Can we exclude polonium as cause of death? The response is clearly no," he said. "Was polonium the cause of the death for certain? The answer is no."

A member from the Russian investigation team last month said it hadn't found any signs of polonium poisoning, but then retracted the statement.

The French team has yet to release its report.

Write to Jay Solomon