Review of a Murderous Deed

By Geoffrey Cook, TMO

This is a review of a 108 page Swiss forensic report on the death of Yasser Arafat and an analysis of his remains.  It was reported to TMO at the time of Arafat’s exhumation but due to a technical error was not printed at that time.

Al Jazeera has done a great service by “republishing” a quite technical but dispassionate report online of the belated impartial autopsy of the late Yasser Arafat.  My intent on this page is not a critical one, but rather to summarize the authors’ very technical findings in examining the body with its effects after eight years in the grave to determine if there is some merit to the accusation of foul  play.  This independent investigation indicates death by poisoning.
The Swiss team of forensic scientists succinctly conclude that their research upon the remains of President Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian National Authority “moderately” implicate that his  death was due to poisoning.

At the time, a month before his passing, on the evening of October 12th 2004 President Yasser Arafat developed acute gastrointestinal discomfiture which preceded his death one month later on November 11th 2004.

The hypothesis — at that time — pointed to an illness consisting of gastrointestinal deterioration with development of severe thrombocytopenia.  (This was often accompanied with a decrease of platelets in the blood often with malaise, fatigue and weakness.) Further, there were disseminated intravascular coagulation, cholestasis icterus (jaundice-like symptoms) and eventually intracerebral hemorrhage (i.e., diseased blood vessel(s) within the brain burst). The clinical investigations performed just after his death did not have the sophisticated forensic tools that have unfolded over the last decade; and, therefore, could not yield as accurate a diagnosis as today.

It was urged eight years after his death to exhume his body (completed on November 27th 2012) when new toxicological and radio—toxicological investigations were able to be performed away from the hostile Israeli observation; and, thus, to be independently undertaken which demonstrated unexpectedly high levels of Polonium–210 and Lead-210 activity in many of his analyzed specimens.  (Clothing and other personal effects of his last month of life were, also, inspected.)

Their results moderately support the proposition that the cause of death was poisoning by Polonium-210.

Thus, although it has been nine years since his death, this very technical independent Report supports — by its evidence — that the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, was murdered through a subtle radioactive (assassination-) poison which must have been administered clandestinely in 2004.

Almost certainly it was the Israeli Mossad (external spy agency) who did the excruciatingly inhumane deed of dispatch.  At the time, though, it was assumed that only the Russians had the technology for low grade “dirty” radioactive personal weapons, but the Israelis had the stockpiles of fissile waste to theoretically produce them.  The use of radioactive poisoning was favored then because it was new, and, thereby, hard to trace.  It took eight years for the technology to track it became available.  Hence, the findings have to be tentative because of the elapsed time, and, if the exact culprit could be found, it would be difficult to get a conviction even though the evidence points in the evil direction of Tel Aviv’ clandestine services.   

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