clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

France closes investigation into death of Arafat

July 22, 2015 at 11:20 am

Palestinians hold posters and light candles as they commemorate the death of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on 11 November 2016 [Saeed Qaq/Apaimages ]

French public prosecution said on Tuesday that France requires no further investigation into murder allegations of late PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

A prosecutor in Nanterre court, near Paris, concluded that the case regarding Arafat’s alleged poisoning via polonium-210 to be closed.

Two weeks ago, the court in Nanterre announced that the judges involved in the case had finished their investigations on 30 April and that the case was turned to the public prosecution to take the necessary measures over a three-month period.

Arafat’s widow Suha and his daughter Zahwa filed a complaint for alleged murder in 2012 after a medical team from Switzerland’s University Centre for Legal Medicine analysed remains exhumed from Arafat’s grave in November 2012 and found traces of the radioactive substance polonium-210.

At the beginning of this year, the three judges asked by French judiciary to probe the case ruled out the possibility that Arafat was poisoned by polonium.

In late 2013, a French medical report dismissed the possibility that Arafat was poisoned after analysing the same remains exhumed from his grave in November 2012.

The report said the above-average level of polonium-210 could result from natural sources in the environment.

PLS48.net said that earlier this year the Nanterre court returned an application by Arafat’s wife to exhume his grave and retrieve further remains for testing. Then, the judges in the same court asked for more investigations, but now they have announced the case to be closed.