What Killed Arafat? Tests Hint At Possible Arafat Poisoning

[DeSwiss]

Source: Al-Jazeera English

[font size=3]What Killed Arafat? Tests hint at possible Arafat poisoning[/font]
Nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera discovers rare, radioactive polonium on ex-Palestinian leader's final belongings.

Al-Jazeera English
Gregg Carlstrom
Last Modified: 03 Jul 2012 16:27

It was a scene that riveted the world for weeks: The ailing Yasser Arafat, first besieged by Israeli tanks in his Ramallah compound, then shuttled to Paris, where he spent his final days undergoing a barrage of medical tests in a French military hospital.

Eight years after his death, it remains a mystery exactly what killed the longtime Palestinian leader. Tests conducted in Paris found no obvious traces of poison in Arafat’s system. Rumors abound about what might have killed him – cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, even allegations that he was infected with HIV.

A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed that none of those rumors were true: Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004.

More importantly, tests reveal that Arafat’s final personal belongings – his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh – contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element. Those personal effects, which were analyzed at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, were variously stained with Arafat’s blood, sweat, saliva and urine. The tests carried out on those samples suggested that there was a high level of polonium inside his body when he died.

Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/whatkilledarafat/2012/07/20127383653774794.html

---

''In politics nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.''

~Franklin D. Roosevelt

[harmonicon]

1. Interesting, but not surprising, if true.

Rabin was killed to the benefit of radicals, so why not go for a sequel?

[DeSwiss]

2. Indeed. n/t

[Archae]

3. He was frikkin' OLD!!!

People actually do die when they get old, still.

Besides, Arafat, his family and cronies were/are so corrupt they stunk on ice.

[Scootaloo]

4. He was only seventy-five

...Before working in a nursing home, I probably would have never prefaced seventy-five with "only." huh.

[Archae]

6. Don't forget that Arafat couldn't get good medical help until the last few decades of his life.

He also was a smoker.

[Wilms]

5. Yep. It's mostly young people that die of poisoning.

And if their "family and cronies were/are so corrupt" then poisoning them is fitting.

:cough:

[JackRiddler]

27. Old people are immune to murder!

Your second, hateful line reveals what you're really on about here.

[Archae]

28. That's not "hateful."

It's a fact.

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-582487.html

[Marzupialis]

31. "He was old therefore he wasn't poisoned"

Nice logic.

[NickB79]

48. Indeed, most elderly people die with polonium in their systems

Just a natural part of the aging process

[TomClash]

7. I wonder who has polonium?

Gee I wonder.

[Posteritatis]

8. It's not exactly limited to a single country or anything. (nt)

[TomClash]

23. LOL

Yes, it grows everywhere in the ME.

It's rare, unstable and has few practical applications.

[Mosby]

37. You can legally buy the stuff on the web

The radioactive material that killed a former Russian spy in Britain can be bought on the Internet for $69.

Polonium-210, which experts say is many times more deadly than cyanide, can be bought legally through United Nuclear Scientific Supplies, a mail-order company that sells through the Web. Chemical companies sell the Polonium-210 legally for industrial use such as removing static electricity from machinery. United Nuclear claims that the material is "currently the only legal Alpha source available without a license."

The type of Polonium-210 sold emits alpha radiation, which can't penetrate the skin but is deadly if swallowed, depending on the amount ingested. The Polonium available on United Nuclear's site can be purchased without a license because the level of radioactivity, 0.1 microcurie, doesn't pose a danger, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says.

"At that level, it's exempt from licenses," NRC spokesman David McIntyre says. "At any exempt quantity, it's not considered a health hazard."

Such small amounts of Polonium could be used to calibrate devices used to detect radiation, McIntyre says. If used for that purpose, the material would remain in its sealed container and never actually handled.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/196513797

Now why Mrs. Arafat had a pair of her husbands 8 year old unwashed underwear lying around the house I couldn't tell you.

[TomClash]

42. Except . . .

1. United Nuclear Scientific wasn't in business in 2004 when Arafat died. It was formed at the end of 2008. There was no website to buy from in 2004.

2. You cannot order Polonium 210 from UNSS if you are outside of the USA or Canada.

3. They only ship in very limited quantities (like one). An unusual shipment of any toxic, unstable chemicals triggers red flags. Serious red flags. Especially from a company that is essentially part of the US Military.

Yes, I'm sure Dov Weinglas is right - French hospital workers mistakenly killed him. And Shin Bet, Aman and the Mossad never kill any Palestinian leaders. Never.

[Mosby]

43. polonium has a half life of four months

So how could polonium show up on 8 year old underwear? It can't it was planted.

[reorg]

44. sorry for intruding

I have no knowledge whatsoever how this radioactive stuff works.

It says at Wikipedia that half life "is the period of time it takes for the amount of a substance undergoing decay to decrease by half."

So, after four months, the radiation of a certain amount of polonium has decreased by half, but it continues to decay and emit radiation. Then, after another four months, it has decreased by another half and so forth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life

In addition to its half life, wouldn't it also depend on the original amount of Polonium in a given place how long it takes until no more radiation can be detected?

And what would that original amount have to be for the reported measurements (I believe m50-180 Bq) to possibly result from Polonium planted 8 years ago?

[TomClash]

45. You don't understand what "half-life" means

"Half life" is the time it takes a substance to decay by one-half. It doesn't mean you can't discover infinitesimal traces of a substance 4 months, 4 years or even forty years later. You can walk back the cat from there to approximate how much of the substance was in his body. In fact, The Swiss Institute at Lausanne already did that.

They also tested twice with a three month interval to measure the half-life change.

"Derek Hill, a radiological science expert at University College London, has said despite the natural decay of the substance after eight years, an autopsy should be able to tell "with a pretty high confidence" whether Arafat had polonium in his body when he died."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-07-05/yasser-arafat-death/56027750/1

His widow, Abbas, Tunisia and Hamas have called for an autopsy. Your zeal to exonerate Israel notwithstanding, let's find out the truth. Let's find out if he was poisoned and if so, by whom.

[Mosby]

46. Sure, test him

but some experts are calling bullshit:

The high levels of the radioactive poison polonium reportedly found on the belongings of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat indicate that the toxin was planted on them long after his death, a senior counterterrorism analyst told The Jerusalem Post Thursday.

Dr. Ely Karmon, of the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya’s Institute for Counterterrorism, is a specialist in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear terrorism.

Responding to an Al Jazeera report published Wednesday – which said that researchers at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, discovered abnormally high levels of polonium on Arafat’s belongings – Karmon said that the half-life of the substance would make it impossible for polonium to have been discovered at such high levels if it had been used to kill Arafat eight years ago.

According to the Al Jazeera report, polonium has a half-life of 138 days, “meaning that half of the substance decays roughly every four-and-a-half months.”

And yet, eight years after Arafat’s death, the Swiss scientists reported finding polonium levels of 54 millibecquerels (mBq) and 180 millibecquerels on his belonging, considered to be high levels.

“If it had been used for poisoning, minimal levels should be seen now. Yet much higher levels were found. Someone planted the polonium much later,” Karmon said.

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=276447

[reorg]

47. that's all very interesting

but doesn't answer the question why (what) "minimal" levels should be seen now, when for instance:

The symptoms seen in Litvinenko appeared consistent with an administered activity of approximately 2 GBq(50 mCi) which corresponds to about 10 micrograms of 210Po. That is 200 times the median lethal dose of around 238 ?Ci or 50 nanograms in the case of ingestion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko

Would 50-180 mBq now be consistent with an administered dose of some 2GBq or not, and why? When I divide 2 million 8x3 times by two, I get 120. What am I doing wrong? I don't seem to get this stuff.

[eyl]

53. Very roughly

180 milli Bq now would mean that 8 years ago, there were 360 kilo Bq. The median lethal dos, per the wikipedia article, would be about 10 mega Bq - about 25 times larger.

In any event, Arafat's doctors have stated his symptoms were not consistent with Plonium poisoning.

[reorg]

54. what are you talking about?

The Israeli terrorism expert said they found too much radiation on his clothes, not too little. Unfortunately, he - or those who quoted him- have not explained why he thinks so.

I'd figure that most of the assumed lethal dose (as I quoted, 2 Giga Bq in the case of Litvinenko, but, as you mentioned, it could be smaller) would still be in the body and not spread around in clothes.

It is unclear, what exactly the French doctors have stated, there are different versions of what they said, depending on who cites them. One of them is quoted as saying that unlike Litvinenko, Arafat didn't lose his hair (but wasn't he completely bald already?), and that "some" of the findings in the medical record were inconsistent with Polonium poisoning. But the doctors did NOT rule out Polonium poisoning and said the only way to find out conclusively is to exhume the body.

OTOH, there is this:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/06/poisoning-arafat/

[NickB79]

49. Polonium is deadly in microgram quantities

You could give a person what would be considered massive overkill of polonium, and it would still be tiny. That would explain why so much remained even after multiple half-life cycles.

[TomClash]

50. Karmon knows it corresponds to what was found in Litvinenko's system

This is LAP nonsense. It is a lie. What a surprise.

[go west young man]

9. Odd that it is the same method used in the poisoning of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko

[Archae]

10. Another conspiracy theory that has nothing to it.

Arafat's biggest enemy was the Israeli government, and the Mossad could have taken him out decades ago.
They didn't because if they had, "instant martyr."

Go to a local paper, and look up the obituaries, and how old the people are that are listed.
The average will be from about 45 to about 90.

Now add to this the fact that Arafat didn't get good medical help until the last couple decades of his life, and I remember seeing a picture of him smoking.

Shortly after Arafat died, radicals in the PLO immediately screamed that Arafat had to have been poisoned.
Why did they say this? Maybe they decided Arafat was immortal.

It was a conspiracy theory that went nowhere, and died out until this latest accusation based on nothing.

[go west young man]

11. Except the tests conducted by Swiss scientists refute your claim.

They found abnormal levels of Plutonium 210 on his personal belongings including his toothbrush. That's something not nothing.

[Archae]

13. Now it's "Plutonium?"

So far the only source we have for the "radioactive" stuff supposedly found is Aljazeera.

And although Aljazeera is more credible than CNN or Faux "news," they have run with wild accusations before that turned out to be false.
(Like Saddam Hussein being sighted in South America, a few days before US troops found him in Iraq.)

[dipsydoodle]

16. Exactly where is plutonium mentioned ?

Maybe someone should read the article to you for clarity.

[Archae]

19. Look at reply #11, above.

Exact words:

"Plutonium 210"

[go west young man]

24. Error on my part . Polonium 210

http://news.yahoo.com/swiss-institute-finds-polonium-arafats-effects-223816830.html

[dipsydoodle]

25. Call it a draw

I can see what happened now to cause the confusion.

[aquart]

32. Polonium. A dangerous overkill.

Really really really want to know why the young wife who didn't live with him is pushing this.

[hughee99]

36. Double indemnity, maybe?

I'm sure he was well insured along with the millions he stashed away. Maybe she's not finding his Swiss accounts as accessible as she expected.

Or maybe she's just pissed because she think someone killed her husband.

[Turbineguy]

12. For the Israelis Arafat was an ideal leader for the Palestinians

Corrupt, inept, physically repulsive. And as such he did lots of harm to his own, saving the Israelis a lot of effort.

[Archae]

14. Exactly.

So who would gain anything having him killed?
Obviously, no-one.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

15. The Bush Administration considered him a threat

because he was seen as a sympathetic character. An old man who pleaded for fairness for his people and do it in English.

[Alexander]

17. It is strange how Arafat died just weeks before the 2004 election.

Very similar to that Osama bin Laden tape that coincidentally came out days before the election.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. I think the Bush people were doing stuff that's been going on all along

but they were clumsy at it and acted like the Internet didn't even exist as it laid their clumsiness bare.

It wasn't until Obama raised cash and Palin stared tweeting that Republicans even looked at the Internet as being something else other than a place for young weirdos and shopping. To them, it was the Mall.

[sofa king]

26. What if the object is merely to desecrate his corpse?

If, as you say, there was no reason to kill him, there were still plenty of people who wished and still wish to defame and discredit him. That opportunity does not always entirely diminish after one is dead.

The presence of polonium on Arafat's personal effects leads directly to the idea of disturbing Arafat's grave, something which will be deeply offensive to some of his supporters and entirely necessary to others.

Arafat did not have to be alive before the polonium was introduced. It could have been accomplished with a spray bottle after his effects were collected.

Conservatives in America found reason to repeatedly dig up Abraham Lincoln until he was finally entombed so thoroughly that it would cost too much to dig him up again. His coffin was opened five times and moved seventeen times over 35 years. It was a small and petty way to continue to torment him after his death.

Looks to me like someone has the same plans for Arafat.

[aquart]

34. HIS WIFE wants to desecrate his corpse?

This is her idea.

Still, she was decades younger and did not live with him. You could be right.

[sofa king]

41. Well, if the polonium is a deception...

...then the deception is largely aimed at Mrs. Arafat, specifically to swing her over to the idea of digging him up. She appears to be the one who holds some moral or legal authority over Yassir's body.

But this idea of mine is zany, I'll freely admit that. One way Yassir could have polonium all over his shit is by living in freshly-dug bunkers, which he apparently did for most of his adult life. Espionage, of course, is always the less simple explanation, which is why Occam's Razor doesn't work when trying to untangle intelligence operations.

[aquart]

33. His wife? Members of his party who thought he'd been in charge long enough?

Occam's razor.

[nashville_brook]

51. +1

[Marzupialis]

29. Your case vs. conspiracy is weak

You mention "radicals" in the PLO believing in poisoning without mentioning the scientists, and pretending that only moderates possess the truth. Then you pretend to know when Arafat got "good" medical care and when he got bad medical care.

And you say nothing about Polonium. The word Polonium is not present in your post at all.

You also pretend that if radicals believe in poisoning it must not be true because they're radical, as if moderates somehow possess the truth exclusively.

[Rhiannon12866]

20. K&R. Very interestng investigation...

[aquart]

35. Not unless they audit the PLO's books.

Not unless they tell you how much money there was and how much Arafat's wife got.

Not unless they tell you who has it now.

Early days the money was spent on the Palestinian refugees and they got a reputation for being the most educated of the Arab peoples. When did that stop?

In the 80s IIRC, the PLO had embassies in 96 countries and the UN. Ever see an embassy in a cheap part of town?

How much of the money came from Russia as part of Cold War policy because the US supported Israel?

Polonium poisoning is a Russian trick. So who did who a favor?

[may3rd]

21. This news is over seven years old

?

[DeSwiss]

22. And yet according to the story's link, it's dated.... today.

- Better late than not at all, eh?

[Marzupialis]

30. Are you saying the test results were released 7 years ago?

? Or do you not know when these test results were released?

[KatyMan]

38. Interesting...

Ironic that someone named Arafat died of Arafat poisoning, like Lou Gehrig actually getting Gehrig’s disease…

(I know it's the story headline, not the OP's words

[madokie]

39. I've always felt he was assassinated, murdered or however you want to put it

[oberliner]

40. Analyst: Polonium found on Arafat's clothing was planted

Responding to an Al Jazeera report published Wednesday, which said that specialists at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, discovered abnormally high levels of polonium on Arafat's belongings, Karmon said that the half life of the substance would make it impossible for polonium to have been discovered at such high levels if it had been used to kill Arafat eight years ago.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113413235

[Bradical79]

52. Seems possible that it was a plant

Someone is possibly trying to make it seem Arafat was poisoned. Lots of the "Arafat was poisoned!" conspiracy theorists are ignoring part of the article:

"Polonium-210, the isotope found on Arafat's belongings, has a half-life of 138 days, meaning that half of the substance decays roughly every four-and-a-half months. “Even in case of a poisoning similar to the Litvinenko case, only traces of the order of a few [millibecquerels] were expected to be found in [the] year 2012,” the institute noted in its report to Al Jazeera."

Most of it should have decayed by now as he died years ago.