Third scientific report says Yasser Arafat died of natural causes

A third investigation carried out on Yasser Arafat's remains and items has rules that the former Palestinian leader died of natural causes not of polonium poisoning.

Arafat had died in a hospital Paris in 2004, weeks after he fell ill while eating a meal in his compound in Ramallah.

No post mortem examination was carried out as his widow Suha did not ask for one but an investigation by al-Jazeera TV, in conjunction with Swiss analysts, found abnormal levels of polonium-210 on his personal effects.

Many senior Palestinian officials blamed Israel for the death, although Israel has strenuously denied having anything to do with it.

A Swiss report said it had detected high levels of radioactive polonium but could not say if it had caused his death. The Vaudois University Hospital Centre (CHUV) in Lausanne said its findings "offer moderate backing for the theory of poisoning", while in its formal murder inquiry; a French report rejected the poisoning theory in favour of death by natural causes.

But a leaked report of Russia's initial tests on the same day said high radioactive penetration was "unsubstantiated".

Announcing its conclusions on Thursday, the head of Russia's Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA), Vladimir Uiba, said "Yasser Arafat died not from the effects of radiation but of natural causes".

The agency had completed its work, he said, and there was general agreement with its findings.

"Even the Swiss withdrew their statements and agreed with us, and the French confirmed our conclusions," Uiba said.

However, the head of the Lausanne institute that carried out the parallel Swiss inquiry, Francois Bochud, told an international news agency the Russian findings had no scientific foundation as their findings were not accompanied by an numerical values or scientific arguments.