Arafat ‘in the final phase of his life’: aide

CLAMART, France – With Yasser Arafat in what an aide called “the final phase of his life”, the Palestinian leader’s political heirs completed burial arrangements yesterday and decided on a temporary presidential successor.

An Islamic cleric read from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, at the bedside of the 75-year-old symbol of the Palestinian cause, who was in a deep coma, on life support, with bleeding in the brain and problems with other vital organs, Palestinian officials said. Palestinian leaders accepted an offer from Egypt to host the main funeral in Cairo – a site less problematic for foreign dignitaries – before Arafat is buried at his sandbagged headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.Bulldozers pushed aside rubble and hauled away piles of wrecked cars to prepare the compound for his burial.”It was decided that the body will be brought to Cairo and there will lie in state,” Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat told The Associated Press.”After that, the body will be flown from Cairo to Ramallah.”France, which first sent a plane to bring Arafat to a Paris area military hospital on October 29, would organise his repatriation, said Palestinian envoy to France Leila Shahid.French government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope confirmed:”We are preparing all the measures necessary, in contact with the family and the Palestinian Authority.”Shahid told France-Info radio that the cleric, Taisser Bayoud Tamimi, who prayed at Arafat’s bedside Wednesday, came to Paris to accompany Arafat “in the final phase of his life”.Arafat was “in a critical state” after a “complication in the state of all of his vital organs” and his coma “seems difficult to come out of”, she said.”The reality is that he is in the hands of God.”- Nampa-APPalestinian leaders accepted an offer from Egypt to host the main funeral in Cairo – a site less problematic for foreign dignitaries – before Arafat is buried at his sandbagged headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.Bulldozers pushed aside rubble and hauled away piles of wrecked cars to prepare the compound for his burial.”It was decided that the body will be brought to Cairo and there will lie in state,” Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat told The Associated Press.”After that, the body will be flown from Cairo to Ramallah.”France, which first sent a plane to bring Arafat to a Paris area military hospital on October 29, would organise his repatriation, said Palestinian envoy to France Leila Shahid.French government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope confirmed:”We are preparing all the measures necessary, in contact with the family and the Palestinian Authority.”Shahid told France-Info radio that the cleric, Taisser Bayoud Tamimi, who prayed at Arafat’s bedside Wednesday, came to Paris to accompany Arafat “in the final phase of his life”.Arafat was “in a critical state” after a “complication in the state of all of his vital organs” and his coma “seems difficult to come out of”, she said.”The reality is that he is in the hands of God.”- Nampa-AP