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The widow of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has asked French prosecutors to investigate the cause of her husband's death in the wake of fresh speculation that he was poisoned. Suha Arafat, and her daughter Zahwa, lodged the joint complaint as they suspect Arafat's death at a French military hospital in November 2004 was the result of an assassination plot. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Nanterre court, which confirmed it had received the complaint, can decide to launch an investigation or dismiss the complaint if they deem it lacks ground. New suspicion that Arafat was murdered arose after Qatari-based television-news channel al-Jazeera broadcast a documentary implying that the Palestinian leader died after being poisoned with polonium, a strongly radioactive element. The news channel cited reports from the Lausanne Institute for Radiation Physics saying that traces of polonium were recently found in Arafat's clothes. According to the paper, in reaction to the al-Jazeera report, the Israeli government said it 'hadn't poisoned Arafat.'

Arafat's widow asks for French probe into husband's death after 'poison claim'