According to Ma’an News, citing a Maariv report, Israeli officials have again raised the idea that arch terrorist Yasser Arafat died of AIDS.
Israeli officials on Friday reiterated claims that late President Yasser Arafat died from AIDS, as a probe into suspected poisoning of the Palestinian leader got underway.
Arafat led the bid for a Palestinian state through years of war and peacemaking, then died in a French hospital aged 75 after a short, mysterious illness in 2004.
No autopsy was carried out at the time, at the request of his wife Suha, and French doctors who treated him said they were unable to determine the cause of death.
But allegations of foul play surfaced immediately, and many Palestinians pointed the finger at Israel, which confined Arafat to his headquarters in Ramallah for the final two and a half years of his life after a Palestinian uprising erupted.
His body was exhumed in November and samples taken by Russian, Swiss and French experts for investigation. The results are expected in spring 2013.
Yossi Kuperwasser, director-general of Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs and a former military intelligence officer, told Maariv newspaper on Friday that he believes Arafat became infected with HIV when his plane crashed in the Libyan desert.
I never figured the Libyan desert for being such a party town, but go figure.
