Alwaght- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he knows who was behind the death of Yasser Arafat, the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) but refuses to mention their names.
“You ask me who killed him, I know, but my testimony alone is not enough,” Abbas said addressing thousands of mourners in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah as they marked 12th anniversary of Arafat’s death.
“I do not want to mention names, because these names do not deserve to be remembered,” he said.
He did say, however, that an inquiry was seeking to identify Arafat’s killers.
“A commission of inquiry is digging into that, but you’ll find out at the earliest opportunity and be amazed when you know who did it,” he said intriguingly.
Arafat, who led an armed struggle against Israeli regime in the late 1960s, died of unknown causes at a hospital near the French capital, Paris, on November 11, 2004. He was 75.
In 2012, Arafat’s widow, Suha, filed a legal complaint in France, claiming that her husband had been assassinated while staying at the Mercy military hospital near Paris in 2004. He had been moved to the hospital the previous month for diarrhea and vomiting.
According to French doctors, he died of a massive stroke, although the origin of his illness was unknown.
Arafat’s tomb in Ramallah was opened the same year so that three teams of French, Swiss, and Russian investigators could collect samples for investigation.
A subsequent French investigation found no proof of poisoning. However, separate probes from Swiss and Russian experts found that Arafat had been poisoned to death with polonium.
Many Palestinians believe that Israeli regime poisoned Arafat. Tel Aviv has denied any involvement in the matter.
