Pontus King Mithradates VIthe Great (meaning "gift of the Aryan god Mithra"), a common name among Anatolian rulers, had contested Imperial Rome's hegemony in Asia Minor. He used to take poison in small doses to avoid being poisoned by his enemies. He did not die of poisoning but after many ups and downs, Roman General Pompey defeated him comprehensively. Mithradates escaped to Crimea. Cornered, Mithradates a powerful man would not die of poisons, so he had to order a slave to kill him. 

After the sweep and repulse of Ottoman arms reaching up to the Gates of Vienna in 16th century first the Europeans and then the US led West has monopolised the assassination of patriotic and nationalist leaders opposed to them, by every possible mean, fair or foul, most often illegal even by Western national laws. There is litany of such assassinations. One being Iraqi president Saddam Hussein but he while being lynched spat out at his enemies. The most recent example is Col Kaddafi, who sometimes stood up to the West and even helped Western leaders with election and other funds, but he was allowed to be lynched and even sodomised by Western supported criminals, to the great glee of western media. No investigation by ICC or of human rights violation and the deaths in Libya since UNSC resolution 1973. The riffraff is now fighting among themselves in a civil war. Western destruction of Libya was begun against the UNSC resolution, but then Washington has been in the forefront of illegal actions.

Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was tried by ICC at the behest of Europe and USA, but Washington has not ratified its membership. Staffed by non-descript mercenary lawyers, many from Africa, it is another tool to punish leaders for not bending to the Western will and objectives of loot.  Milosevic died of illness as the West would not let him be treated in Moscow. Washington has coerced or bribed many countries to avoid being tried for its crimes by ICC. But this did not stop the trial and conviction recently of George Bush, Tony Blair and other Western leaders who mounted an illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 against UN Charter by an independent international Tribunal in Kuala Lumpur.

Bush administration's foreign policy undermined the fragile structure of international law and conventions built up during the past three centuries, to which the United States made important contributions. Former president Billy Carter, wrote in the Washington Post in end 2002 that, "formerly admired almost universally as the pre-eminent champion of human rights, our country has become the foremost target of respected international organizations concerned about these basic principles of democratic life". A lot of dirty water has since flowed in the Potomac.

And now the menace of illegal drone warfare in which enemies of the USA are targeted and killed without any international authorization, which also kill many more civilians. International Law and conventions have been almost totally undermined by a hubris ridden Washington. For how long!

Add to the West’s list of eliminated leaders Yasser Arafat who it is becoming clearer was poisoned at the behest of Israel and Washington possibly with the connivance and complicity of so-called Palestinian leaders who eke miserable lives under the boots of Israeli heels. Who gained the most from this murder? It has been reported that the United States and France are opposed to an international investigation (But West has launched so many crooked investigations to suit their aggressive objectives like the Hariri assassination to implicate Syria.)

Wrote Gilad Atzmon,”Since we now have conclusive evidence that Arafat was poisoned by radioactive polonium 210 and since Israel is the prime suspect in Arafat’s 2004 assassination, surely it is time to point the finger at Israel and its leadership and to demand explanations.” Already in 2004, Silvan Shalom, at the time Israeli Foreign Minister, rejected as “scandalous and false” the idea that his country had a role in Arafat’s death. However, this is despite the facts that Israel had earlier threatened Arafat, blaming him for Palestinian violence and, after losing 15 citizens to suicide bombings in September 2003 and had decided to “remove” Arafat – though without elaborating publicly precisely how this might be achieved. As if this were not enough, an Israeli newspaper quoted Avi Dichter, at the time Shin Bet director as saying that it would be better to kill Arafat than exile him.

No wonder when Yasser Arafat expired on 11 November 2004 “in exile“ in a Paris hospital, away from his Israeli battered Ramallah residence in Palestine, there were valid suspicions about his death so suddenly.

Suha Arafat asks for an investigation

The debate about Arafat’s death was renewed last week after Qatar satellite channel al-Jazeera  (which has joined BBC and CNN in sprouting spins and lies about Libya, Syria and Iran) after it aired an investigative report indicating that Arafat was poisoned with toxic radioactive polonium. Arafat was ill for more than two years, confined by Israel in his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.

On Monday, the Palestinian leadership asked Swiss scientists from the Lausanne-based Institute of Radiation Physics, which al-Jazeera had hired for testing Arafat's personal belongings. Following the report, the Palestinian leaders have agreed to exhume Arafat's body from his West Bank grave if his family so requests. The Swiss Institute had found "surprisingly" high levels of polonium-210 on Arafat's clothing - the substance used to kill former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.

"I want the world to know the truth about the assassination of Yasser Arafat," Suha Arafat told Al Jazeera. Her lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sud said in a statement after Mrs. Arafat made an application in French Court, "Madame Arafat hopes that the authorities will be able to establish the exact circumstances of her husband's death and uncover the truth, so that justice can be done.”  

Additional Reading:
Life and Times of Arafat: Mission Incomplete