Written By remi on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 | 4:47 AM
Arafat's tomb exhumation set to commence Deceased Palestinian president's Ramallah burial site closed to public, as experts prepare for forensic examination.
The Palestinians' most explosive secret may be lurking under the stone slab covering Yasser Arafat's tomb [AFP]
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's tomb has been screened from public view in what a Palestinian official said was preparation for forensic examination of his body.
The entrance to the presidential headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah was surrounded on Monday by blue tarpaulins.
"Since this morning, Arafat's mausoleum was closed as a preliminary step in the investigation of his death," Tawfiq Tirawi, head of the Palestinian investigative committee on Arafat's death, told the AFP news agency.
Arafat died in a French military hospital near Paris on November 11, 2004 and with French experts unable to say what had killed him, many Palestinians are convinced he was poisoned by Israel.
French prosecutors opened a murder inquiry in August after Al Jazeera broadcast an investigation in which Swiss experts said they had found high levels of radioactive polonium on Arafat's personal effects.
A French team is due in Ramallah on November 26 to begin work on exhuming the body, Palestinian sources said last month, adding that Swiss experts would arrive at the same time for an operation that could take "several weeks or a month".
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that Russia would also be helping the investigation although he did not specify in what role.
"We are currently in contact with French investigators, experts in Switzerland and the Russian government to open the tomb of Yasser Arafat," Abbas said in a speech in Ramallah to mark the eighth anniversary of his predecessor's death.
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.
Pakar Forensik 3 Negara Periksa Jenazah Yasser Arafat
Metrotvnews.com, Yerusalem: Pakar-pakar Rusia akan bergabung dengan tim dokter forensik dari Swiss dan Prancis untuk memeriksa jenazah mantan pemimpin Palestina, Yasser Arafat, bulan ini.
Ahad (11/11), Presiden Palestina Mahmud Abbas mengatakan, ia berharap fakta-fakta baru tentang penyebab kematian mendiang Yasser Arafat akan bisa terungkap.
Yasser Arafat meninggal di sebuah rumah sakit Prancis pada November 2004. Penyebab kematiannya terus menjadi tanda-tanya bagi banyak orang.
Walaupun penyebab langsung kematiannya adalah stroke, sumber penyakit yang dideritanya sejak beberapa pekan sebelum itu tidak pernah dijelaskan. Ini memicu spekulasi bahwa ia mungkin diracun, terkena penyakit AIDS, ataupun kanker.
Penyelidikan itu diadakan setelah sebuah laboratorium di Swiss menemukan sisa-sisa isotop radioaktif yang berbahaya pada pakaian Arafat, sehingga memicu tuduhan bahwa ia diracun. (VOA/Wrt3)
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