AFP reports French prosecutors have opened an inquiry into former PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s 2004 death. The announcement follows the release of Al Jazeera’s months-long investigation into the possibility that, rather than dying of natural causes, Arafat succumbed to polonium poisoning.
The investigation stated that Arafat, who died in a military hospital outside Paris, maintained heightened levels of polonium in many of his personal belongings, including his trademark keffiyeh. Switzerland’s Lausanne University Hospital Center announced on Friday that it received permission from Arafat’s widow to examine Arafat’s body, which is currently lying in a mausoleum in Ramallah.
France’s announcement comes only weeks after a British judge opened an investigation into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident who perished due to polonium poisoning in 2006.
