Head of committee investigating Arafat’s death says there was an inside man
PA official blames US and Israel, but says a Palestinian 'traitor' must have been involved
A Palestinian turncoat was involved in the death of Yasser Arafat, the head of the committee investigating the late Palestinian leader’s cause of death said Tuesday.
Tawfiq Tirawi asserted that Israel was behind Arafat’s death, with the involvement of the US government and a Palestinian collaborator. “Avi Dichter did not himself put the poison in Arafat’s food, and we are searching for the traitor,” Tirawi said, referring the former head of the Shin Bet security service.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has approved digging up Arafat’s remains and wants an international probe of his predecessor’s mysterious 2004 death. A Swiss lab says it detected elevated traces of a lethal radioactive agent on clothing said to be Arafat’s, although it could not determine that the polonium found was a factor in Arafat’s death, and some Palestinians are pointing to this as evidence that he was poisoned.
A Jordanian doctor, Dr. Abdullah al-Bashir, is to lead the investigation into the cause of Arafat’s death, working with the committee headed by Tirawi and the Swiss lab that found the polonium, a mysterious but deadly element.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Tuesday that the US would wait for the results of any new investigation into Arafat’s death and would not respond to rumors, as speculation wouldn’t help the investigative process.
Speaking in Vietnam, Clinton said she was looking forward to visiting Israel next week as part of a two-week foreign tour.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.