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Judges investigating claims Arafat was poisoned decline to bring charges

French judges investigating the claims decline to bring charges

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A Palestinian woman cries next to a portrait of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat outside the Muqataa, Arafat's West Bank headquarters, in Ramallah in 2004. Photo: AFP

French judges investigating claims that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was murdered have closed the case without bringing any charges, a prosecutor said.

"At the end of the investigation ... it has not been demonstrated that Mr Yasser Arafat was murdered by polonium-210 poisoning," the three judges ruled on Wednesday, according to the prosecutor at Nanterre court near Paris.

Yasser Arafat , the embodiment of Palestinian aspirations for statehood for four decades, died in Paris at the age of 75.
Yasser Arafat , the embodiment of Palestinian aspirations for statehood for four decades, died in Paris at the age of 75.
The decision was blasted as "fundamentally biased" by lawyers for Arafat's widow Suha and rejected by the Palestinian Authority's own inquiry committee.
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Arafat died in 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.

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Arafat's widow has claimed he was poisoned, possibly by highly radioactive polonium. But the judges ruled it out, saying there was "not sufficient evidence of an intervention by a third party who could have attempted to take his life", the prosecutor said.

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