Suha Arafat waits while the coffin of her husband, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is loaded aboard.
Suha Arafat waits while the coffin of her husband, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is loaded aboard a plane at the Villacoublay air base near Paris, November 11, 2004. REUTERS

The widow of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat filed a suit with a French court on Tuesday to open a murder investigation into her husband's death. Arafat died in a Paris hospital of a reported stroke in 2004, but allegations of foul-play were again raised when Swiss experts said in June that they discovered “surprisingly” high levels of polonium 210 on the Nobel Peace Prize winner's clothing.

"My husband died in an odd way. There are signs leading one to believe he was poisoned," Suha Arafat told Le Figaro.

"It is surprising that a sovereign country like France does not know the cause of death of a head of state, cared for in one of its own hospitals," she added, referring to recent denied requests for her husband's medical records.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said earlier this month that if an investigation were opened, he would authorize Arafat's remains to be exhumed from a mausoleum in Ramallah.

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