The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on Wednesday asked Israel to allow a French delegation to visit the West Bank for investigations related to the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in 2004, a Palestinian official said.

The Palestinian Minister of Justice Ali Muhanna said that a formal request had been submitted to the Israeli authorities to facilitate the entry of the French criminal investigation delegation to Ramallah.

Muhanna added that the French delegation consists of three judges and criminal police investigators, accompanied by a lawyer representing Suha Arafat, widow of the late Palestinian leader. He welcomed the investigation as a positive step "one that will advance the case for international litigation."

The French delegation's visit comes after French prosecutors opened an investigation into the possibility that Arafat was poisoned. The formal investigation by French authorities was opened on Aug. 18 after a lawsuit presented by Arafat's widow was accepted by the French court.

Suha wanted the claim of poison investigated after a program aired on al-Jazeera claimed high levels of polonium was found amongst Arafat's personal belongings.

Arafat died after a prolonged illness at a hospital in the French capital of Paris in 2004, with doctors unable to say the cause of death. Israel kept him locked inside his West Bank compound for about two years and allowed him to leave for France only when he fell ill.

Alongside the French investigation, Palestinian officials announced yesterday that a Swiss scientific lab agreed to exhume Arafat's body for additional tests for possible polonium poisoning.

The Lausanne-based Institute of Radiation Physics responded positively to a request from the PNA, which invited the institution to send experts to the West Bank to take samples from Arafat's body, said Tawfiq al-Tirawi, head of the Palestinian committee investigating Arafat's death.

But the experts said they also need Suha's approval to exhume the body.