Yasser Arafat's personal physician urged Palestinian officials to order a formal inquiry and a post-mortem examination to establish what killed the veteran leader. Dr Ashraf al-Kurdi made the appeal on Al-Jazeera on Thursday, only hours before Arafat was to be buried.
Kurdi, who had treated Arafat for more than 20 years, said his doubts grew from the silence around the leader's condition after Arafat was admitted to a hospital in Paris on 29 October. He noted that Arafat had been conscious when he left his compound in Ramallah.
Speculation that Arafat had been poisoned circulated widely, though physicians in Paris and Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath dismissed the claim. Kurdi added that members of Arafat's office had been slow to reach him even as the leader's health declined sharply.
Kurdi, who did not travel to Paris, stopped short of a firm conclusion, saying he could not determine the cause of death despite his suspicions.
Where it stands now. Arafat died on 11 November 2004. In 2012 and 2013, after his remains were exhumed, separate teams examined claims that he had been poisoned with polonium. The findings were inconclusive, and no cause of death was established with certainty.
TurkishPress summary of a November 2004 wire report.