Official tells French news agency: Prosecutors have opened murder inquiry into Arafat’s death
PARIS – A judicial official has told the Sipa news agency that French prosecutors have opened a murder investigation into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Suha Arafat filed a legal complaint in France after Arab satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera broadcast the results of an investigation into her husband’s death. That included tests of objects that Suha said belonged to him.
A Swiss institute detected elevated traces of polonium-210 — a rare and highly lethal substance — on the belongings, but said the findings were inconclusive.
The official said on condition of anonymity because of office rules that a judge will be named to investigate.
Arafat died in a French military hospital in 2004 of what doctors called a stroke.
Longstanding rumours in the Arab world have said he was poisoned.
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