FATAH HEAD: ISRAEL POISONED ARAFAT

Arafat was poisoned by Israel, claims Fatah head
TUNIS (AFP) - Late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was fatally poisoned by Israel, the head of the dominant Palestinian movement Fatah claimed. “I can categorically confirm that Abu Ammar (Arafat’s nom de guerre) was poisoned,” exiled Fatah chairman Faruq Qaddumi told reporters. Arafat, long the public face of the Palestinian struggle for statehood, was declared dead in a French military hospital on the outskirts of Paris on November 11 2004. He had been treated there for two weeks.

France’s strict medical secrecy laws mean that the exact cause of Arafat’s death has not been made public, but his nephew received a copy of his medical file. Fuelled by the ambiguity surrounding his death, many ordinary Palestinians are convinced that Arafat’s death at the age of 75 was far from natural. Arafat personal physician for more than 20 years, Jordanian Ashraf Al-Kurdi “attests that Abu Ammar presented the symptoms of poisoning,” added Qaddumi, who succeeded Arafat as head of the Fatah movement which the late leader had founded.

“The poisoned was administered in the food and in the medication he swallowed,” said Qaddumi, who was appointed Fatah chief after Arafat died but refuses to visit the occupied Palestinian territories and lives in Tunis.