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Follow Us on TwitterFrench investigators to exhume Arafat’s body next month 31Oct12 October 31, 2012
Haaretz - 30 October 2012
Criminal investigators from France will exhume the remains of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat next month to try to find out how the Palestinian leader died, French officials said Tuesday.
Palestinian authorities confirmed the timetable and said a separate Swiss investigative team would arrive in the West Bank city of Ramallah at the same time. No exact date was disclosed.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The push to re-examine circumstances surrounding Arafat’s November 2004 death came after a Swiss lab recently discovered traces of polonium-210, a deadly radioactive isotope, on clothes said to be his.
The discovery revived suspicions of poisoning.
The immediate cause of Arafat’s death was a stroke, but the underlying source of an illness he suffered in his final weeks has never been clear.
Rumors circulated that he had died from anything from stomach cancer to poisoning to AIDS. French officials, citing privacy laws, refused to give details of the nature of his illness.
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