Tag Archives: Alexander Litvinenko

| Breaking: Widow proves Arafat was poisoned with polonium!

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UPDATE 1-Palestinian leader Arafat was murdered with polonium – widow ~ Paul Taylor, PARIS.

(Reuters) – Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium, his widow Suha said on Wednesday after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband’s corpse.

“We are revealing a real crime, a political assassination,” she told Reuters in Paris.

A team of experts, including from Lausanne University Hospital’s Institute of Radiation Physics, opened Arafat’s grave in the West Bank city of Ramallah last November, and took samples from his body to seek evidence of alleged poisoning.

“This has confirmed all our doubts,” said Suha Arafat, who met members of the Swiss forensic team in Geneva on Tuesday. “It is scientifically proved that he didn’t die a natural death and we have scientific proof that this man was killed.”

She did not accuse any country or person, and acknowledged that the historic leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization had many enemies.

Arafat signed the 1993 Oslo interim peace accords with Israel and led a subsequent uprising after the failure of talks in 2000 on a comprehensive agreement.

Allegations of foul play surfaced immediately. Arafat had foes among his own people, but many Palestinians pointed the finger at Israel, which had besieged him in his Ramallah headquarters for the final two and a half years of his life.

The Israeli government has denied any role in his death, noting that he was 75 years old and had an unhealthy lifestyle.

An investigation by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television news channel first reported last year that traces of polonium-210 were found on personal effects of Arafat given to his widow by the French military hospital where he died.

That led French prosecutors to open an investigation for suspected murder in August 2012 at the request of Suha Arafat. Forensic experts from Switzerland, Russia and France all took samples from his corpse for testing after the Palestinian Authority agreed to open his mausoleum.

“SMOKING GUN”

The head of the Russian forensics institute, Vladimir Uiba, was quoted by the Interfax news agency last month as saying no trace of polonium had been found on the body specimens examined in Moscow, but his Federal Medico-Biological Agency later denied he had made any official comment on its findings.

The French pathologists have not reported their conclusions publicly, nor have their findings been shared with Suha Arafat’s legal team. A spokeswoman for the French prosecutor’s office said the investigating magistrats had received no expert reports so far.

One of her lawyers said the Swiss institute’s report, commissioned by Al Jazeera, would be translated from English into French and handed over to the three magistrates in the Paris suburb of Nanterre who are investigating the case.

Professor David Barclay, a British forensic scientist retained by Al Jazeera to interpret the results of the Swiss tests, said the findings from Arafat’s body confirmed the earlier results from traces of bodily fluids on his underwear, toothbrush and clothing.

“In my opinion, it is absolutely certain that the cause of his illness was polonium poisoning,” Barclay told Reuters. “The levels present in him are sufficient to have caused death.

“What we have got is the smoking gun – the thing that caused his illness and was given to him with malice.”

The same radioactive substance was slipped into a cup of tea in a London hotel to kill defecting Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. From his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder.

The British government refused to hold a public inquiry into his death after ministers withheld some material which could have shed light on Russia’s suspected involvement.

Barclay said the type of polonium discovered in Arafat’s body must have been manufactured in a nuclear reactor.

While many countries could have been the source, someone in Arafat’s immediate entourage must have slipped a miniscule dose of the deadly isotope probably as a powder into his drink, food, eye drops or toothpaste, he said.

BRIEF RECOVERY

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 Nov. 11.

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. No autopsy was carried out.

Barclay said no one would have thought to look for polonium as a possible poison until the Litvinenko case, which occurred two years after Arafat’s death.

Some experts have questioned whether Arafat could have died of polonium poisoning, pointing to a brief recovery during his illness that they said was not consistent with radioactive exposure. They also noted he did not lose all his hair. But Barclay said neither fact was inconsistent with the findings.

Since polonium loses 50 percent 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, the scientist said.

“A tiny amount of polonium the size of a flake of dandruff would be enough to kill 50 people if it was dissolved in water and they drank it,” he added.

The Al Jazeera investigation was spearheaded by investigative journalist Clayton Swisher, a former U.S. Secret Service bodyguard who became friendly with Arafat and was suspicious of the manner of his death.

Hani al-Hassan, a former aide, said in 2003 that he had witnessed 13 assassination attempts on Arafat’s life, dating back to his years on the run as PLO leader. Arafat claimed to have survived 40 attempts on his life.

Arafat narrowly escaped an Israeli air strike on his headquarters in Tunisia in 1985. He had just gone out jogging when the bombers attacked, killing 73 people.

He escaped another attempt on his life when Israeli warplanes came close to killing him during the 182 invasion of Beirut when they hit one of the buildings they suspected he was using as his headquarters but he was not there. In December 2001, Arafat was rushed to safety just before Israeli helicopters bombarded his compound in Ramallah with rockets.

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Al Jazeera exposes forensic results on Arafat’s death: http://aje.me/17MEioc

polonium2Al Jazeera exposes forensic results on Arafat’s death: http://aje.me/17MEioc

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| UK pre-inquest review into Litvinenko death: Russian spy ‘was paid MI6 agent!’

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Litvinenko death: Russian spy ‘was working for MI6’ ~ BBC.

Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in November 2006 after meeting Russian contacts.

Former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko was working for the British secret service when he was poisoned in November 2006, a legal review has heard.

The court was told that Mr Litvinenko was paid by MI6 and was working alongside Spanish spies in the days before his death.

British government documents which implied that Russia was behind the 43-year old’s murder were also revealed.

Moscow has previously denied any involvement in Mr Litvinenko’s death.

The pre-inquest review, presided over by a judge sitting as coroner, looked into the scope of the inquest which is due to begin on 1 May 2013.

Mr Litvinenko died in November 2006 after ingesting polonium-210, allegedly during a meeting with ex-KGB contacts Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun.

Russia has refused to extradite main suspect, Mr Lugovoi to the UK for questioning.


Analysis

image of Gordon Corera
Gordon Corera Security correspondent, BBC News

Today’s hearing – looking at the scope of the inquest – contained two major revelations:

First, that the British government had provided information pointing to the role of the Russian state in the killing. Individuals have been accused before but not the state – at least openly.

Secondly, came details that Mr Litvinenko had been a paid agent of MI6. On one level this was not surprising and had long been rumoured. But the detail was hugely significant.

He met his MI6 handler just before he died and MI6 had put him in touch with Spanish authorities. He was due to go to Spain with the man accused of murdering him.

This involvement, the lawyer for his widow said, meant the British state should have protected him. A key question has now emerged – was Mr Litvinenko killed by the Russian Secret Service and was he killed because of his relationship with the British secret service?

‘Foreign agents’

Ben Emmerson, the lawyer representing Mr Litvinenko’s widow Marina, told the hearing at Camden Town Hall, London that the inquest should consider whether MI6 failed in its duty to protect against a “real and immediate risk to life”.

Mr Litvinenko was thought to have worked for MI6 for several years and was working with the Spanish secret service investigating the Russian mafia shortly before his death.

Payments were made by both the British and Spanish secret services to a joint bank account Mr Litvinenko held with his wife.

Mr Emmerson said the Russian had a dedicated MI6 handler, known as Martin, whom he met on 31 October 2006 just days before he was poisoned with the radioactive polonium-210 isotope at the Millennium Hotel in central London.

He added that MI6 and the British government had an “enhanced duty” to ensure the Russian’s safety when tasking him with “dangerous operations involving foreign agents”.

Mr Emmerson also revealed that Mr Litvinenko was due to go Spain with Mr Lugovoi as part of his work to help Spanish prosecutors understand the role of the Russian mafia.

Neil Garnham, representing the Home Office, told the review he could “neither confirm nor deny” whether Mr Litvinenko was employed by British intelligence.

‘Prime facie’

During the submissions, the counsel to the inquest Hugh Davies revealed that documents from the British government show that Russian state involvement in Mr Litvinenko’s death was evident.

Mr Davies said assessments of the confidential government material “established a prima facie case as to the culpability of the Russian state in the death of Alexander Litvinenko”.

But he added the documents showed no evidence to suggest Britain was involved in the poisoning of Mr Litvinenko, or that it failed to take necessary steps to protect him.

Alexander Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, spoke to reporters after the hearing

The evidence also ruled out the involvement of other parties, including the former spy’s friend Boris Berezovsky, Chechen-related groups and the Spanish mafia, Mr Davies said.

The Kremlin has indicated it would like to become an interested party in the inquest, which would allow representatives of the state to cross-examine witnesses and examine evidence.

It will begin next year before High Court judge Sir Robert Owen.

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| PA says will take Israel to ICC if tests prove Arafat assassinated!

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PA says will take Israel to ICC if tests prove Arafat assassinated ~ Ma’an News Agency.

 

Members of an honor guard leave after a wreath laying 
ceremony near the grave of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah on
Nov. 27, 2012. (Reuters/Ammar Awad)
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — The Palestinian Authority will start legal proceedings against Israel at the International Criminal Court if forensic tests prove that President Yasser Arafat was murdered, chief investigator Tawfiq Tirawi said Tuesday.

“We have evidence and indications that (Arafat) was killed, including remarks by Israeli leaders that they must get rid of Arafat, but we need evidence to submit to the International Criminal Court,” Tirawi told reporters at a news conference in Ramallah.

Forensic experts took samples from Arafat’s uncovered corpse in Ramallah on Tuesday, trying to determine if he was murdered by Israeli agents using the hard-to-trace radioactive poison Polonium.

Tirawi, who heads the committee investigating Arafat’s death, told reporters that samples taken by Russian, Swiss and French experts would leave Ramallah on Tuesday.

He added that the Palestinian general prosecution supervised all the legal and medical procedures which took place over the past few days.

“The corpse of the late Palestinian leader was touched only by Palestinian hands. The Palestinian medical team took the samples and gave them to other teams as requested,” Tirawi said.

Arafat died as a martyr for the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, Tirawi said, noting that the exhumation happened to coincide with Palestine’s submission of a resolution seeking “observer state” status at the UN.

“(A Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital) is what Yasser Arafat always said and today he repeated it from his grave,” added Tirawi.

In Gaza City, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said he backed the PA’s efforts.

Haniyeh told reporters that “the case of Yasser Araft is a distinguished national case because he was an iconic revolutionary and leader of the Palestinian people.”

Palestinians witnessed the funeral of their hero and longtime leader eight years ago, but conspiracy theories surrounding his death have never been laid to rest.

Many are convinced their icon was the victim of a cowardly assassination, and may stay convinced whatever the outcome of this autopsy. But some in the city of Ramallah where he lies deplored the uncovering of his body Tuesday.

“This is wrong. After all this time, today they suddenly want to find out the truth?” said construction worker Ahmad Yousef, 31. “They should have done it eight years ago,” he said.

Arafat’s body was uncovered in its grave and samples were removed without having to lift the corpse from the ground. As a result, the planned reburial ceremony with full military honors was called off.

The tomb was resealed in hours and wreaths were placed by Palestinian leaders including PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

“The state of the body was exactly what you would expect to find for someone who has been buried for eight years. There was nothing out of the ordinary,” Health Minister Hani Abdeen told a news conference.

French magistrates in August opened a murder inquiry into Arafat’s death in Paris in 2004 after a Swiss institute said it had discovered high levels of polonium on clothing of his which was supplied by his widow, Suha, for a television documentary.

Results in spring 2013

Jordanian doctor Abdullah al Bashir, head of the Palestinian medical committee, said about 20 samples were taken and analysis would take at least three months.

“In order to do these analyses, to check, cross-check and double cross-check, it will take several months and I don’t think we’ll have anything tangible available before March or April next year,” said Darcy Christen, spokesman for Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland that carried out the original tests on Arafat’s clothes.

Arafat led the bid for a Palestinian state through years of war and peacemaking, then died in a French hospital aged 75 after a short, mysterious illness.

No autopsy was carried out at the time, at the request of Suha, and French doctors who treated him said they were unable to determine the cause of death.

But allegations of foul play surfaced immediately, and many Palestinians pointed the finger at Israel, which confined Arafat to his headquarters in Ramallah for the final two and a half years of his life after a Palestinian uprising erupted.

Israel denies murdering him. Its leader at the time, Ariel Sharon, now lies in a coma from which he is expected never to awake. Israel invited the Palestinian leadership to release all Arafat’s medical records, which were never made public following his death and still have not been opened.

Polonium, apparently ingested with food, was found to have caused the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. But some experts have questioned whether Arafat could have died in this way, pointing to a brief recovery during his illness that they said was not consistent with radioactive poisoning. They also noted he did not lose all his hair.

Eight years is considered the limit to detect any traces of the fast-decaying polonium and Lausanne hospital questioned in August if it would be worth seeking any samples, if access to Arafat’s body was delayed as late as “October or November.”

Not all of Arafat’s family agreed to the exhumation.

Arafat’s widow watched her husband’s exhumation on television from her house in Malta.

“This will bring closure, we will know the truth about why he died. I owe this answer to the Palestinian people, to the new generation, and to his daughter,” a tearful Suha told the Times of Malta.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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| Swiss team prepares for former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat’s exhumation!

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Swiss team prepares for former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat’s exhumation ~ news.com.au

Yasser Arafat

Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will be exhumed by a Swiss laboratory team. Source: AFP

The team, along with French investigators, is expected to participate in Arafat’s exhumation on November 26, as part of a new investigation into the circumstances of the late leader’s 2004 death.

The delegation from the Institute of Radiation Physics at Switzerland’s University of Lausanne arrived on Monday, Palestinian sources said, adding that they met with Palestinian health minister Hani Abdeen and justice minister Ali Mhanna.

The team also held talks with Tawfiq Tirawi, head of the Palestinian commission that investigated Arafat’s death, “to discuss next steps” and visited the Ramallah mausoleum that houses Arafat’s grave.

Arafat died in a French military hospital near Paris on November 11, 2004 and French experts were unable to say what had killed him, with many Palestinians convinced he was poisoned by Israel.

French prosecutors opened a murder inquiry into his death in August after Al-Jazeera television broadcast an investigation in which Swiss experts said they had found high levels of radioactive polonium on Arafat’s personal effects.

Polonium is a highly toxic substance rarely found outside military and scientific circles.

It was used to kill former Russian spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 in London shortly after drinking tea laced with the poison.

Last month, Palestinian sources told AFP that French investigators and a team from the Swiss lab would exhume Arafat’s body on November 26.

“The Palestinian Authority will provide these teams with every facility in order to determine the circumstances of the death of president Yasser Arafat,” the source said.

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