Yasser Arafat's blood was contaminated with the HIV virus when he died, his doctor says.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Arafat's personal physician Dr. Ashraf al-Kurdi said the late Palestinian Authority chairman did not die of AIDS.

A Jordanian news site quoted al-Kurdi as saying that the virus had been injected into Arafat's bloodstream close to his death, and that the real cause of the chairman's death was poison.

Al-Kurdi also told the Jordanian site that Arafat's death was suspicious in several other respects:

Arafat's wife, Suha, refused to allow the doctor to visit Arafat in the private Paris hospital where he was being treated.

Al-Kurdi added that he was denied access to Arafat's body after his death.
However, al-Kurdi did not explain why he did not come forth sooner and reveal the information.

Arafat died Nov. 11, 2005. He was 75.