Russian forensics team to help Arafat exhumation

Russia will send forensics experts to help examine the body of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat which is due to be exhumed next week as part of international attempts to establish whether he was murdered, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the current Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, had requested Russia assist in the exhumation due to take place in Ramallah on Nov. 26. "They all have high professional expertise and the practical experience to conduct the necessary tests," Lukashevich said. "They will include members of Federal Medical-Biology Agency and the director of the Russian Centre of Forensic Medical Expertise." Allegations of foul play have long surrounded the 2004 death of Arafat and the case resurfaced this summer when a Swiss institute said it had discovered high levels of radioactive element polonium-210 on his clothing. Polonium is the radioactive substance found to have killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, a case that has weighed heavily on ties between Moscow and London.