You have commented 358 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Israel-Palestine-Jordan
'Arafat poisoned by polonium'
2012-07-04
[Saudi Gazette] Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004, was poisoned by polonium, according to the findings of laboratory research carried out in Switzerland
...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell...
 and cited in an Al-Jazeera
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS...
 report Tuesday.
So he died of AIDS and polonium. But mostly of AIDS...
The analysis focused on biological samples taken from the late Paleostinian leader's belongings given to his wife Suha by the military hospital in Gay Paree where he died, according to Francois Bochud, head of the Institute of Radiation Physics at the University of Lausanne.

Arafat, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, died on Nov. 11, 2004, following several weeks of treatment.

"The conclusion was that we did find some significant polonium that was present in these samples," Bochud told Al-Jazeera.

To confirm the theory that he was poisoned by polonium it would be necessary to exhume and analyse Arafat's remains, Bochud said.
Posted by:Fred

#18  So that's what the Red-Binder was for, list of Boy-toys for the evening!
Posted by: Charles   2012-07-04 18:37  

#17  grom wins the thread! :-D
Posted by: Barbara   2012-07-04 17:41  

#16  There was a joy boy calling himself Polonium?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2012-07-04 17:01  

#15  Ah. The Threeringnomicon.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2012-07-04 16:38  

#14  Polonium can be easily obtained. Anyone could have done it. If the idea is even true.
Posted by: gorb   2012-07-04 16:35  

#13  When you track down the dread Red Binder, you will know


:-)
Posted by: Frank G   2012-07-04 16:23  

#12  Might simply be the KGB hated him and once he's no longer useful, offed him. Remember what they did to the ones that kidnapped their Diplomat in Leb.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Schlumberger Squishy Mud Division   2012-07-04 16:06  

#11  I've always thought that the Mossad got to Arafat. Probably through some third-party intermediary who was in Arafat's trusted inner circle. But polonium poisoning - if this is even true - is a kinda dumb way of doing things. It was stupid for Putin to use the same method on Litvinenko. Putin wanted to make the point that he hated traitors, but polonium is traceable and rare. It's not exactly a low-signature way of killing someone.

The question is ... with Arafat gone, was Isreal really better off dealing with Hamas instead? I doubt it. Arafat may have been a pain in the a**, but he was a predictable pain in the a**. Hamas is a bigger problem.
Posted by: Raider   2012-07-04 14:18  

#10  Games within games within games

Polonium has been used at least three times on expat Russians by the KGB.

This is a real head scratcher for me. If the KGB did off Arafat, what were they hoping to accomplish in his stead?

I can't find my conspiracy theorist cap and decoder ring so I need some help from everyone.
Posted by: Bill Clinton   2012-07-04 14:03  

#9  Arafat was poisoned?
Good riddance.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2012-07-04 12:12  

#8  The PA has agreed to dig up the Turd
Posted by: Frank G   2012-07-04 11:06  

#7   A spokesman for the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, where those items were analyzed, stressed that the "clinical symptoms described in Arafat's medical reports were not consistent with polonium-210 and that conclusions could not be drawn as to whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned or not", and that "the only way to confirm the findings would be to exhume Arafat's body to test it for polonium-210."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-palestinians-arafat-idUSBRE8621CL20120703
Posted by: BernardZ   2012-07-04 10:25  

#6  Pronounced, pole-in-a-nether.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2012-07-04 08:57  

#5  Plausible has a completely different meaning in the Arab/Muslim world. Sort of like 'free thought' in American academia.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2012-07-04 08:45  

#4  Polonium-210 (used in the Litvinienko assassination) has a half life of 139 days.

The decay product is stable Lead-206.

If the detected Polonium-210 traces stem from a poisoning in 2004 the initial concentration on Polonium was higher by a factor of at least ~100000.

Would a lethal, yet undetected dose administered in 2004 (to a high profile target) be distinguishable from background in 2012?

Is that plausible?

Posted by: Spusolet Clunk9755   2012-07-04 05:15  

#3  C'mon, guys - it was just as experimental treatment for AIDS.

Didn't work, but worth a try, particularly on Arafart.
Posted by: Barbara   2012-07-04 02:28  

#2  To confirm the theory that he was poisoned by polonium it would be necessary to exhume and analyse Arafat's remains, Bochud said.

Somehow, I doubt this will happen.
Posted by: gorb   2012-07-04 01:02  

#1  Hmm, sounds very Russian in nature.

Posted by: bigjim-CA   2012-07-04 00:57  

00:00