Arafat's body to be exhumed Tuesday to test for poison

[NewsCaster]

Palestinians plan to exhume the body of  Yasser Arafat in an attempt to determine whether he was assassinated by lethal doses of radioactive poison. NBC's John Ray reports. By Jihan Abdalla, ReutersRAMALLAH -- The body of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will be  exhumed on Tuesday, eight years after his death, in an investigation to  establish if he was murdered, a Palestinian official said on Saturday.Palestinian Authority via ReutersThen Palestinian President Yasser Arafat sits surrounded by doctors in his office in the West Bank City of Ramallah on Oct. 28, 2004.A  French court opened a murder inquiry in August into Arafat's death in Paris  after a Swiss institute said it had discovered high levels of radioactive  polonium on his clothing, which was supplied by his widow, Suha.

Tawfiq  al-Tirawi, who is in charge of the Palestinian committee overseeing the investigation,  told reporters in Ramallah on Saturday that "it is a painful necessity" to exhume the  body of Arafat, who came to symbolize the Palestinian quest for statehood  throughout decades of war and peace with Israel.




NBCNews