Arafat 'may have been poisoned'

The Swiss investigators who detected enough polonium in the body of Yasser Arafat to kill him say there should be an inquiry into how the former Palestinian leader died.

Many Palestinians agree, but Israel has dismissed the idea as a conspiracy theory.

ITV News Middle East Correspondent Geraint Vincent reports.

An expert in radioactivity measurements told ITV News that while he believes the scientists who concluded Arafat was poisoned did a "thorough and careful job" and considered factors that could impact their findings, the seven-year delay makes the statistical certainty of their conclusions "limited".

Watch: Arafat's widow: 'We are mourning Yasser all over again'

Hanan Ashrawi, who was close to Yasser Arafat and saw him shortly before he left for Paris has said that his illness looked "unnatural."

She said: "I talked to the medical teams that were examining him, they told me that unquestionably that he was poisoned, but they couldn't identify the poison."

Ms Ashrawi said that "we have to pursue now the people that are responsible justice has to be done."

The widow of Yasser Arafat, Suha, has described how weak the former Palestinian leader was before his death after it was revealed that scientists have found a high level of polonium 210 in his exhumed body.

Mrs Arafat said: "Words can't express my deep sorrow and the sorrow of my daughter, but mostly the anger - we are so angry. It's a political crime, a political assassination. It is so hard, we are mourning him again."

Video courtesy of Al Jazeera.

Read more: Arafat 'poisoned to death'

The Israeli government has denied any role in the death of Yasser Arafat, saying that he was 75-years-old.

"This is more soap opera than science, it is the latest episode in the soap in which Suha opposes Arafat's successors," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

The investigation amounted to "a highly superficial attempt to determine a cause of death".

Suha Arafat, the widow of the late Palestinian leader said: "When they came with the results, I’m mourning Yasser again. It’s like you just told me he died. I will not stop. Me and my daughter will go to all courts in all over the world to punish who did this crime."

Some experts have questioned whether Arafat could have died of polonium poisoning, pointing to a brief recovery during his illness which is not consistent with radioactive exposure. They also noted he did not lose all of his hair.

But Professor David Barclay said neither fact was inconsistent with the findings.

Since polonium loses 50% of its radioactivity every four months, the traces in Arafat's corpse would have faded so far as to have become untraceable if the tests had been conducted a couple of years later, Professor Barclay said.

Swiss scientists found at least 18 times the normal amount of polonium in Yasser Arafat's remains, Al Jazeera has claimed.

You can read the full forensics report on the Al Jazeera website.

Arafat fell ill in October 2004, displaying symptoms of acute gastroenteritis with diarrhoea and vomiting. At first Palestinian officials said he was suffering from influenza.

He was flown to Paris in a French government plane but fell into a coma shortly after his arrival at the Percy military hospital in the suburb of Clamart, where he died on 11th November.

The official cause of death was a massive stroke but French doctors said at the time they were unable to determine the origin of his illness and no autopsy was carried out.

Polonium- 210 was responsible for the death of defecting Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 after it was slipped into a cup of tea in a London hotel. From his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder.