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Arafat Death Certificate Has Jerusalem Birthplace

By Jon Boyle
PARIS (Reuters) - Yasser Arafat did not achieve his dream of being buried in
Jerusalem but his death certificate states he was born in the holy city,
fueling a long-running controversy over his birthplace.

The Palestinian president, who died in a hospital in the Paris suburb of
Clamart last week, always maintained he was born in Jerusalem. Leading
biographers say he was born in Cairo.

A Jewish rights group is demanding the death certificate be changed, fueling a
dispute that has political repercussions.

Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital, and the
Palestinians, who call the city Al Quds, want it as the capital of their
planned independent state.

"What I can confirm is that the document handed over in order to complete the
death certificate of Mr. Arafat ... did give his place of birth as Al
Quds/Jerusalem," said Cladie Tracol, a spokeswoman for the Clamart local
authorities.

"To date, we have not received any request to correct it."

Tracol said the details were contained in the "livret de famille," an official
booklet issued to French families that contains dates of birth, marriage and
death of family members.

The Paris branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S.-based Jewish rights
group, said it had written to French Justice Minister Dominique Perben Monday
asking him to correct the death certificate.

"The Egyptian authorities recognize Cairo as the birthplace," Shimon Samuels,
a representative of the center, said in the letter.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous told reporters Arafat's place
of birth details had been taken from an official document. He did not
elaborate, except to say France was bound by law to take at face value
information contained in valid official non-French documents.

The Arafat family qualified for a "livret de famille" because the Palestinian
leader's wife, Suha, took French nationality in the mid-1990s.

CONTROVERSY IN LIFE AND DEATH

Arafat, 75, died at the Percy military hospital last Thursday after being
flown in from his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah where he had
in effect been trapped by Israel for more than 2 1/2 years.

Israel refused to let Arafat be buried in Jerusalem but allowed him to be
interred in his shell-battered Ramallah headquarters last Friday after a
funeral in Cairo.

Arafat was born Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini on Aug. 24,
1929, to a modest trading family. Leading biographies say he was born in Cairo
where his merchant father settled, but Arafat always said he was born in
Jerusalem.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center also urged France to make a clear statement about
the cause of Arafat's death to end speculation among Palestinians that Israel
poisoned him.

"The ambiguity sustained by the hospital over the diagnosis of his illness has
spawned accusations of murder which can only exacerbate future violence in the
Middle East," it said.

The French Justice Ministry was not immediately available to comment on the
controversy. But Foreign Minister Michel Barnier poured cold water on the rumors.

"I have heard my colleague Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister, say
very firmly that the theory of poisoning did not stand up," Barnier said of
the murder allegations during an interview with France's Europe 1 radio.

Barnier also said France would release Arafat's medical dossier only to his
family, despite a request for details by Palestinian leaders.

French doctors are bound by privacy laws invoked by Arafat's widow, which
prevent them releasing details.


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