Arafat remains reburied after samples taken

RAMALLAH - Agence France-Presse

REUTERS photo

The remains of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were reburied today after samples were taken to be tested for signs he was poisoned, Palestinian sources said, AFP reported.

"The operation is finished, the tomb has been resealed and the samples have been given to the French, Swiss and Russian experts," officials from the Palestinian commission investigating Arafat's death told AFP.

Palestinian officials had originally planned a military ceremony to accompany the reburial of the remains after their exhumation.

But sources said the samples were removed from the remains directly from the grave, so there was no need to rebury them in a new ceremony.

"The samples were taken from Arafat's remains from inside the grave and the samples were then transferred to the mosque," a Palestinian source said, referring to a building adjacent to the Muqataa presidential complex in Ramallah, from which Arafat once ruled.

The removal of the samples was conducted by a Palestinian doctor in the presence of experts from Switzerland, Russia and France. Palestinian officials were expected to give a press conference to discuss the process at 1200 GMT.

Eight years after the death of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, his remains were exhumed on Tuesday, with experts set to test for signs that the late president was poisoned.

The process was carried out in secrecy, with Arafat's grave carefully shielded from the public eye and media kept far away, but Palestinian sources confirmed the remains had been removed for testing on Tuesday morning.

"At 5:00 am (0300 GMT), experts began to remove the stones and began opening the grave in an orderly fashion. The remains were then transferred to a mosque adjacent to the grave for the removal of samples," a Palestinian source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The source said only a Palestinian doctor would be allowed to directly touch the remains and remove the samples, but that the process was being conducted in front of Swiss, Russian and French experts.

For weeks now, Arafat's grave in a mausoleum on the Muqataa presidential site from which he once governed has been hidden from view by blue tarpaulins.

The mufti of Jerusalem, Mohamed Hussein, arrived at the Muqataa on Tuesday morning and told AFP he would be present at the opening of the tomb.

The samples being collected are to be tested for the radioactive substance polonium as part of a new investigation into whether Arafat was poisoned.

The probe was prompted by an investigation carried out by the Al-Jazeera news channel, which commissioned a Swiss lab to test personal effects belonging to the late leader that were given to them by his widow Suha.

The tests revealed the presence of the toxic substance polonium, and prompted calls for the exhumation of Arafat's remains for new testing.

Polonium was the substance that killed Russian ex-spy and fierce Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.

France opened a former murder inquiry into Arafat's death in late August at Suha's request, and French judges in charge of the investigation arrived in Ramallah on Sunday to participate in the exhumation process.

Rumours and speculation have surrounded Arafat's death ever since the quick deterioration of his health before he died at the Percy military hospital near Paris in November 2004 at the age of 75.

Doctors were unable at the time to say what killed the Palestinians' first democratically-elected president and an autopsy was never performed, at his widow's request.

But many Palestinians believed he was poisoned by Israel -- a theory that gained ground in July following the Al-Jazeera report.

The samples taken today will be flown to laboratories in the three countries involved, with results expected within several months.

Some experts, however, have questioned whether anything conclusive will be found because polonium has a short half-life.

Jean-Rene Jourdain, deputy head of human protection at the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), said it would take weeks of analysis to be sure that the traces were man-made polonium rather than just coincidental contamination by naturally-occurring polonium.

"Even if traces of polonium are found, it doesn't mean that they are man-made," he told AFP on Monday.