MOSCOW, December 26 (RAPSI) – Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died a natural death, Vladimir Uiba, head of Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency, told journalists on Thursday.

“He died of natural causes, not radiation poisoning. The Swiss made a somewhat ambitious statement, but they have since retracted it and have accepted our conclusion, which our French colleagues have also confirmed,” Mr. Uiba said at a news conference at RIA Novosti.

Arafat’s widow Suha previously said she would contest the French conclusions that ruled out the possibility of radiation poisoning.

The conclusions of the French forensic experts differed from those of their Swiss colleagues, according to which tests of samples taken from Arafat’s body were consistent with polonium poisoning.

As usual in such cases, the Palestinians suspected that Israel was somehow involved in the death of Yasser Arafat, who died in Paris in 2004. Israel has refuted these suspicions.

Samples were taken from Arafat’s body in November 2012 by Swiss, French and Russian experts after an al Jazeera documentary said his clothes showed high amounts of polonium.