Europe court refuses to hear case on Arafat death

The European Court of Human Rights dismisses a case brought by the widow and daughter of Yasser Arafat, who have claimed the iconic Palestinian leader’s death was the result of poisoning.

Suha Arafat and Zahwa Arafat, who are French citizens, filed their case with the Strasbourg-based European court in 2017 after French courts dismissed their claims.

Arafat died at the Percy military hospital near Paris aged 75 in November 2004 after developing stomach pains while at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Many Palestinians accuse Israel of poisoning Arafat, a charge flatly denied by the Jewish state.

But in 2012 his widow, Suha, said traces of the radioactive isotope polonium 210 had been found on his clothes, prompting a French lawsuit alleging his murder. After a series of analyses and witness interviews, a court in Nanterre, west of Paris, dismissed the case, a ruling upheld on appeal.

Lawyers for Arafat’s widow said the investigation had been “fundamentally biased” and accused the judges of closing the probe too quickly.