Poisoning Rumors Fail to Die Down

“Arafat is a man of history’” says his personal physician Dr. Ashraf Al-Kurdi. “It is incomprehensible that such a leader could be pronounced dead, honored in a funeral, and buried without announcing what he died of.”

The refusal of the French authorities to reveal the cause of Arafat’s death has set the Middle Eastern rumor mills working overtime. The proverbial “Arab street” is asking whether Arafat might have been the victim of a complex international plot to remove him from the scene as a prelude to an “imposed solution” of the Palestinian problem.

As might have been expected Israel has been accused of having killed Arafat by poisoning. Statements by former Israeli officials about previous plans to liquidate the Palestinian leaders have fanned the fires of such rumors.

French Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said yesterday there was no reason to suspect poisoning. “Medically, scientifically, technologically, everything was done in medical terms and by way of treatment, and nothing leads us to suppose there was poisoning,” said Douste-Blazy.

His comments came after the Palestinian representative in France Leila Shahid said earlier yesterday she thought it was possible that Arafat could have been poisoned.

“It is quite possible that he was poisoned because they (the Israelis) have poisoned others,” Shahid said on the private French radio station Europe One. “I cannot tell you that, medically, we have any proof.

“The doctors did not deny it. There is no proof of particular toxins but there are toxins that one does not find in the bodies of sick people.” She pointed out that “still today, there has been no diagnosis. The doctors have only confirmed what they saw, the symptoms. Medical tests cannot reveal everything.”

But she said there was “absolutely no question” of asking for another medical communiqué. “The file has been handed over to his family and we respect French law” on patient confidentiality, she said, but added “I won’t tell you what we will ask his wife.”

Arafat’s family, including his widow and nephew, has deepened the mystery with a series of enigmatic and contradictory statements. They have admitted that they asked the French authorities not to reveal the cause of death. But at the same time they insist there was nothing to hide.

Nasser Al-Qidwa, Arafat’s nephew and Palestinian representative to the United Nations, also demanded explanations in newspaper interviews this weekend.

“We can’t forget that there was no diagnosis and this case must remain open,” Al-Qidwa said in comments published yesterday by the Portuguese newspaper Publico.

“It is the right of the Palestinian people to try to obtain final and clear conclusions regarding this matter.”

Arafat died in Paris last Thursday aged75 . He had been flown on Oct. 29 to France for treatment after tests showed he had a low count of blood platelets. Neither the French hospital where he was treated nor Palestinian officials have announced a cause of death.

Douste-Blazy told Radio J station here only Arafat’s family had had full access to all medical records.

The medical team at the French military hospital where Arafat was treated for a blood disorder had shown the family the records, both while treatment was in progress and in summary, the minister said. “I was not personally acquainted with the files either as a doctor or as health minister,” he admitted.

But he continued: “I can tell you it appears nothing in the medical files indicated that there might have been such a case (of poisoning,) otherwise the legal authorities would have had to take the files in hand.”

“I draw this conclusion while noting that permission was given to bury the remains as a consequence of my certified statement,” he added.

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