Russia rules out Arafat poisoning

Moscow: Russian forensic experts studying the remains of Yasser Arafat said on that the Palestinian leader died a natural death, ruling out radiation poisoning.

“We have completed all the studies,” Vladimir Uiba, head of Russia's Federal Medical Biological Agency (FMBA), told a news conference.

“The person died a natural death and not from radiation.” A Palestinian envoy, however, said the Pales-tinian authorities will press on with a probe into the 2004 death of Arafat.

“I can only say that there is already a decision to continue (the investigation),” Faed Mustafa, the Palestinian ambassador to Russia, told the state RIA Novosti news agency.

“We respect their position, we highly value their work but there is a decision to continue work,” he said. “We need a result, a final and concrete result to take the issue off the table.”

A decision to ask the UN General Assembly to establish an international commission to investigate the circumstances of Ara-fat's death was taken at an Arab League meeting in Cairo on Saturday.

Arafat died in France on November 11, 2004 at the age of 75, but doctors were unable to specify the cause of death. No autopsy was carried out at the time, in line with his widow’s request.

His remains were exhu-med in November 2012, partly to investigate whe-ther he had been poisoned  and some 60 samples were taken and divided bet-ween Swiss and Russian investigators.