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Photo: Reuters
Was Arafat poisoned?
Photo: Reuters

Doctors to probe Arafat poisoning allegations

Arab doctors to meet in Jordan in bid to determine whether Palestinian leader was poisoned

Nearly five years after Yasser Arafat died from what French doctors called a massive brain hemorrhage, Arab doctors will meet in Jordan to look into lingering suspicious the Palestinian leader was poisoned.

 

Arafat's death at a military hospital outside Paris quickly spawned speculation he'd been killed by Israel, which viewed him as an obstacle to a peace treaty.

 

The 75-year-old Arafat, who led the Palestinian movement for almost 40 years, fell violently ill in October 2004 at his West Bank compound in Ramallah. He was moved to a French hospital where he died Nov. 11, 2004.

 

At the time, French doctors bound by strict privacy rules were tightlipped about Arafat's condition, and his widow refused an autopsy. Palestinian leaders have never given a definitive cause of his death.

 

French doctors who treated Arafat concluded in a report later obtained by The Associated Press that he died of a "massive brain hemorrhage" after suffering intestinal inflammation, jaundice and a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC.

 

What brought on the DIC was not explained. The condition has numerous causes, ranging from infections to colitis to liver disease.

 

"Consultation with experts and laboratory tests could not help to find a cause that would explain ... The group of syndromes," his French doctors wrote at the time. The report made no mention of poison or another popular theory, AIDS.

 

Israel strongly denied any role in Arafat's death. French doctors declined to comment on the speculation. Jordanian heart surgeon Abdullah al-Bashir said the meeting Thursday involving seven to eight doctors - many who treated Arafat when he fell ill - will try to determine whether he was poisoned.

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.01.09, 22:55
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