{"id":42475,"date":"2013-10-15T18:45:53","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=42475"},"modified":"2013-10-15T18:45:53","modified_gmt":"2013-10-15T14:45:53","slug":"former-palestinian-leader-yasser-arafat-may-have-been-poisoned-with-radioactive-polonium-after-scientists-find-traces-in-his-underwear-and-toothbrush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=42475","title":{"rendered":"Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned with radioactive polonium after scientists find traces in his underwear and toothbrush"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned to death with radioactive polonium, scientists in Switzerland have revealed.<\/p>\n

Arafat died in France on November 11, 2004, at the age of 75, but at the time doctors were unable to specify the cause of death.<\/p>\n

Experts revealed that several belongings and items of clothing belonging to Arafat, including his toothbrush, hat and underwear, contained high ‘unexplained levels’ of the radioactive material.<\/p>\n

Arafat, who died after falling ill at his headquarters in the West Bank, showed symptoms of nausea, stomach pain and kidney and liver failure – signs consistent with radiation poisoning.<\/p>\n

But the lack of hair loss or a shortage of bone marrow casts doubt on that theory, the scientists admit.<\/p>\n

Much rumour had surrounded Arafat’s death after doctors couldn’t identify how he died.<\/p>\n

Speculation continued unabated when his widow Suha initially refused a post mortem examination on her husband’s body.<\/p>\n

But she changed her mind and asked judges in France last year to launch a murder probe into her husband’s death, claiming he was poisoned because he was an ‘obstacle to peace’.<\/p>\n

Experts at Lausanne’s Radiation Physics Institute have now released details of the tests which ‘support the possibility’ he did not die of natural causes.<\/p>\n

A statement said: ‘Several tests on samples of bodily fluids contained an unexplained higher level of polonium 210, compared to control samples.<\/p>\n

‘These findings support the possibility of Arafat’s poisoning with polonium 210.’<\/p>\n

The team, whose findings are published in British medical journal The Lancet this week, said they regretted that no post-mortem investigation was carried out after Arafat’s death.<\/p>\n

Polonium breaks down quickly in the human body and is difficult to trace if there is a delay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned to death with radioactive polonium, scientists…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":42472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,224,137],"tags":[2666,2667],"class_list":["post-42475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east","category-news","category-world","tag-palestin","tag-yasser-arafat","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}