JERUSALEM, 9 September 2005 — A “massive brain hemorrhage” killed longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat last year, though it remains unclear what led to the rapid deterioration in his health, according to French medical records obtained by The Associated Press yesterday.
The records, from the Percy Military Training Hospital where Arafat died last November, offered the first independent glimpse at the Palestinian leader’s final days.
Arafat’s wife, Suha, and Palestinian officials have never given a definitive cause of death and kept Arafat’s medical records a closely guarded secret. Mrs. Arafat also rejected calls for an autopsy.
The medical dossier was initially obtained by the New York Times and two Israeli media outlets, which conducted separate reviews of the information. Their investigations gave different explanations for the cause of the stroke, deepening the puzzle over his death.
“The mystery around Yasser Arafat will only grow bigger and bigger after reading this report,” said Avi Isacharoff, the Israel Radio reporter who obtained the medical records with the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa, a nephew of Arafat and one of the few people who had access to Arafat and his doctors in France, said the new reports shed no new light and the cause of death remains unknown.
Arafat, 75, fell ill in his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah a month before his death. He had been confined by Israelis there for three years. He spent his last two weeks in the French hospital.
The Israeli reporters got the records from an unidentified senior Palestinian official, then shared the information with the Times, which conducted its own review. Israeli and American medical experts were consulted. Isacharoff, who is working on a book about Arafat’s final days, shared the conclusions of the French report with the AP.
According to the French doctors, Arafat suffered a digestive ailment about 30 days prior to his death. He also suffered an “acute” case of a blood disorder, disseminated intravascular coagulation, or D.I.C., the report said. The report was signed by Bruno Pats, a senior doctor at the hospital.
The hospital’s director, Dr. Jean-Paul Burlaton, refused to discuss Arafat’s medical records. “We did our job at the appropriate time and so we have no comment to make.”
The Times said Arafat’s stroke was caused by D.I.C. that stemmed from an unidentified infection, though it dispelled two widespread rumored causes of death: AIDS or poisoning.
The Times cited an unidentified Israeli infectious-diseases expert as criticizing the French medical team for not testing for AIDS. But the expert said after studying the records, AIDS was unlikely due to the sudden onset of an intestinal illness.
The Haaretz report, however, quoted Dr. Gil Lugassi, president of the Israel Hematologists Association, as saying the symptoms described could be typical of AIDS.
“What is simply unacceptable and seems very perplexing is the absolute disregard for the possibility of AIDS,” Lugassi, one of the doctors to review the records, was quoted as saying. Contacted by The Associated Press, Lugassi declined to comment.
Dr. Ashraf Al-Kurdi, Arafat’s personal physician, asserted that Arafat had the AIDS virus in his blood. “It was given to him to cover up the poison,” he told the AP.
Al-Kurdi, however, did not say where the AIDS virus or poison had come from. Al-Kurdi did not join the French medical team and would not say whether he had seen their records.
Many senior Palestinian officials have accused Israel of poisoning their leader — an allegation Israeli officials reject.
The Times review said poisoning was highly unlikely. It noted that French doctors conducted a battery of toxicology tests that came up negative.
The researchers also said Arafat did not suffer the extensive kidney and liver damage they would expect from poisoning, the newspaper reported. It also said Arafat’s condition improved in the French hospital, and that he was able to walk and talk with his associates, before he slipped into a coma last Nov. 3. Such an improvement would make poisoning unlikely.
