Dr. Rudi Roth, één van de vele wetenschappers, die de conclusies van het rapport omtrent de vermeende poloniumvergiftiging van de Palestijnse leider Yasser Arafat weerlegt, heeft hiervoor gesproken met professor François Bochud, directeur van het onderzoekscentrum van het Universitair Ziekenhuis in Lausanne (CHUV).
U kan hier verder over lezen in het artikel gepubliceerd door Deborah Blum, de beroemde Amerikaanse wetenschapsjournaliste, winnaar van de Pulitzer Prize, en enige journalist geciteerd in het Zwitserse rapport: “Rest in Peace, Yasser Arafat”
Evenals in het artikel gepubliceerd door Joods Actueel: “Deskundigen maken brandhout van Arafatrapport na vraag Belgische onderzoeker” …
At the beginning of this story of poison and suspicion, in the summer of 2012, the body of Yasser Arafat had been resting peacefully in its tomb in the West Bank city of Ramallah for eight years.
In what I’ll call the middle, about a year ago, his body was exhumed so that it could be tested for evidence of the element polonium-210, a radioactive poison made famous when Russian agents used it to kill an outspoken dissident in 2006.
The Arafat polonium inquiry was sparked by the Qatar-based news service, Al Jazeera, which arranged with the Swiss Institute for Radiation Physics in Lausanne to test his personal effects (bedclothes, pajamas) for poisons. The laboratory reported trace evidence of Po-210, a surprising finding given that he’d been dead for eight years and the element itself has a half-life of only 138.4 days. In fact, some concern was raised that there was there was no clear chain of evidence regarding the artifacts tested. Still the findings caused enough of an uproar that Arafat’s body was dug up and some 60 tissue and bone samples were sent to the same Swiss laboratory, to a Russian research facility, and to a French forensics lab.
And this week, we’ve apparently reached the tale’s less than perfect end.
One month ago, the Swiss laboratory announced “moderate support” for the poisoning idea. Then the Russians declared that their tests were inconclusive. Today, the French scientists declared that they saw no signs of poisoning, that when Arafat died at age 75, he was just an ailing elderly man vulnerable to spreading infection.
In fact, this isn’t as much of a mixed message as you might think.
Before the French published their findings, the Swiss lab’s results had been called into question by a number of scientists, including the Belgium-based medical investigative reporter, Dr. Rudi Roth. You can find Roth’s inquiry here at his publication, Joods Actuel …
“Rest in Peace, Yasser Arafat” By Deborah Blum 12.03.13 wired.com
Gerelateerde artikels: FJO: https://fjo.be//nieuws/562/Geen-polonium-in-lichaam-Yasser-Arafat
DeDagelijkseStandaard.nl: Polonium, Arafat en een kudde olifanten
Wired.com / Joods Actueel – foto: Yasser Arafat (in het midden)