Whats your take on spy Litvinenko's death?

…but the men were Sergei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard (was a body guard to Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar who recently was vomiting blood in Dublin) and businessman who runs a security company in Moscow, Dmitry Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko.

Dmitry Kovtun one of the three men that met Mr Litvinenko at the Pine Bar in London’s Millennium Hotel on 1 November has fallen into a coma in Moscow (Russian Interfax News agency and BBC newsflash 6 December).

Another Russian who was at the same meeting, ex-spy Andrei Lugovoy, is also in hospital.

These men came to London allegedly to see the Arsenal-CSKA Moscow Champions League match in the Gunners Emirates stadium on 1 November. Trace of Polonium-210 have been found in Arsenal’s Emirates stadium as well as on the British Airways Boeing 767 flight from Moscow that brought the men to London.

Russian prosecutors are currently investigating what they are treating as the murder of Mr Litvinenko and the attempted murder of Mr Kovtun.

A statement from the Russian prosecutor’s office said checks had established Mr Litvinenko died as a result of poisoning

Earlier today, seven workers at the Millennium Hotel’s Pine bar tested positive for low levels of polonium-210, the radioactive substance blamed for Litvinenko’s death, according to the UK’s Health Protection Agency

After a Muslim prayer service, ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko was laid to rest Thursday in a rain-swept funeral at London’s Highgate Cemetery attended by a Russian tycoon, a Chechen rebel leader and other exiled Kremlin critics.
In Moscow, Russian prosecutors opened their own investigation into the former KGB agent’s poisoning death.

Self-exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky, Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev and some 50 mourners consoled Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, and 12-year-old son, Anatoly, beside his (lead lined radiation-proof) dark oak casket as a steady rain fell.

Litvinenko, who also criticized Putin’s policies in Chechnya, reportedly had converted to Islam before his death, and some of the mourners were dressed in traditional Muslim robes. They left red flowers and an orange and yellow wreath at the stone gate of the famous cemetery where communist revolutionary Karl Marx is buried.

Earlier Thursday, Zakayev and Litvinenko’s father, Walter, joined hundreds of Muslims who had gathered at London’s Regent’s Park Mosque for regular daily prayer to attend a memorial service, where the imam recited a funeral prayer.

(Associated Press, London, Thursday 6 December)

This radiation has been tracked to moscow… but that proves nothing

Polonium-210 was tracked to one of the three seats occupied on the British Airways Boeing 767 flight from Moscow to London two weeks before these same men met Litvinenko in the Millenium Hotel London. The Millenium Hotel is also a particular “hotspot”. Of course this could be anyone coming from Moscow…but the men were Sergei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard (was a body guard to Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar who recently was vomiting blood in Dublin) and businessman who runs a security company in Moscow, Dmitry Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko.

The Times of London cite security sources as saying Litvinenko told Scotland Yard detectives that he had arranged a meeting with an old friend, Andrei Lugovoy and was surprised to meet another man, who introduced himself only as Vladimir.

Litvinenko told police officers that he was suspicious of Vladimir because he was careful to disclose nothing about his identity or why he had turned up to what was supposed to be a private get-together.

Vladimir pressed Litvinenko to join him in a cup of tea, but said little during the meeting. Later that day Litvinenko complained of feeling violently ill.

Another “hotspot” is in the nearby Mayfair offices of Putin’s sworn enemy Boris Berezovsky (Litvinenko went there to photocopy the “hitlist” given to him by Mario Scaramella, (sounds like the Bond Villain Scaramanga! :p ) the Italian who had called him out of the blue saying he wanted to bring forward a meeting planned for 10 November to discuss important documents. They met for 35 minutes in Itsu Piccadilly where he told Litvinenko he had received death threats aimed at them both.

Nick Pisa. the first British journalist to interview Scaramella the day the story broke reckons there are gaps in his CV and downright suspicious elements about him that Scaramella was not prepared to clarify (to do with his alleged links to secret services of at least four countries and the alleged shooting at him two years ago by the Camorra).

Nick Pisa has an Southern Italian background himself and he could not recognise a Neapolitian accent in Scaramella (who says he is from Naples) nor the usual hand waving or chatter of the typical South Italian. Intriguingly, he says to him Scaramella’s English was tinged with a Russian accent! 😮 :diablo:

An interesting aside was Scaramella told Pisa he had not eaten (he says he only had a glass of water) at Itsu with Litvinenko because he had had a pizza – in Pizza Hut! Now even I wouldn’t set foot there to have a pizza because their pizzas are crap compared to say Pizza Express :p For a true Neapolitan to set foot there seems odd to say the least (he was no stranger to Britain)! 😀 :dev2:

The media claims that moscow likes to use radioactive poisons but even though I am interested in their history I can’t remember a previous case where a victim was killed with such a poison.

Why use it? The lethal dose is only 1/10 of a microgram. The alpha radiation it gives off can only travel a few centimetres before it is absorbed (it’s just a helium nucleus, a helium atom shorn of its electrons). It can be stopped easily with even tissue paper or a few skin cells and is only deadly if swallowed or inhaled. It would cause havoc to the victim’s insides as damage to chromosomes by alpha radiation is 100 times greater than with other types of radiation. Polonium-210 has a half-life of only 138 days, so has a short shelf life which means it would need to be used soon after being produced. Once swallowed it is very difficult to detect and correctly diagnose.

The quantity of Polonium-210 involved could only have come from a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator (you cannot produce such amounts by Marie Curie’s method of laboriously extracting it from tons of pitchblende (uranium ore)).

A single gram might cost several million dollars as offered by Promekologia (affiliated to a Russian military nuclear laboratory) singled out as an exporter of nuclear materials by a decree of the then President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin. The US, Russia and China are some of the few countries that could produce this element (in fact it powered the old Soviet Lunar Rover). One might speculate that it was too obvious but perhaps that might be the intention… Naturally the Russian say this is a deliberate attempt to cast a slur on Putin and his former FSB colleagues who now occupy many key positions in the state apparatus.

Intersting on this thread that no-one has considered the “death” of Litvinenko is a cover-up because he’s too valuable to the west. Show everyone through the press what that nasty Putin man can do to people and then spirit the guy away , under cover , to a new identity somewhere ?
Think i read too many espionage books ??? …. then i suggest you consider how “improbable” this story seemed four weeks ago.

kind of reminds me of something???

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Your name wouldnt be Thomas would it !!!!! only joking!!

But seriously i doubt if it would be poss given the extent of the press coverage , the fact that soo many medical staff would have been involved, never mind the involvement of security forces , police et all….

One thing I’ve learned from watching documentaries about the “Mob”…is sometimes they make a very public killing in order to keep people in fear.
The logic seems to be “since you’re going to be suspected anyway, make sure the victim suffers a horrible death to keep your enemies in line”.

…..otherwise known as ” Terrorism ” the aim of which , whether State or otherwise, is to create as much terror and/or publicity as poss…and to hell with the innocents!

unfortunately it works too…

Intersting on this thread that no-one has considered the “death” of Litvinenko is a cover-up because he’s too valuable to the west. Show everyone through the press what that nasty Putin man can do to people and then spirit the guy away , under cover , to a new identity somewhere ?
Think i read too many espionage books ??? …. then i suggest you consider how “improbable” this story seemed four weeks ago.

This radiation has been tracked to moscow… but that proves nothing.

Putin is in Moscow, but then so are Putins enemies that would like to discredit him too.

The media claims that moscow likes to use radioactive poisons but even though I am interested in their history I can’t remember a previous case where a victim was killed with such a poison. Strange the KGB developed ricin for their Bulgarian counterparts yet haven’t developed something like that for themselves…

Seems an awfully messy way to kill someone. Traces of it here, there and everywhere and already three direct links to Russian citizens. Seems almost like leaving a calling card. There are much quieter and less incriminating ways of murdering someone surely?

Well Kev, J Boyle seems to have put it perfectly 😉 :dev2: :

One thing I’ve learned from watching documentaries about the “Mob”…is sometimes they make a very public killing in order to keep people in fear.
The logic seems to be “since you’re going to be suspected anyway, make sure the victim suffers a horrible death to keep your enemies in line”.

Seems an awfully messy way to kill someone. Traces of it here, there and everywhere and already three direct links to Russian citizens. Seems almost like leaving a calling card. There are much quieter and less incriminating ways of murdering someone surely?

Regards,

kev35

After the Soviet Union broke up, so did the KGB. Some joined the FSB, some went into politics, and some went into business. If you take a look at Forbes Magazine of the worlds billionaires. Quite a few are Russians. There’s a lot of money to be made in Russia today, it’s just a matter of who’s going to grab the most of it.

It’s just internal Russian power play to me. Battle between Ex KGB factions as to who is going to control the most power and wealth at the end of the day.

It may prove impossible to prove who actually did the deed and who ordered it to be done.Trying to find a link back to the Russian Government, if they are actually responsible, will be a waste of time .They have had years of experience hiding their tracks.

The probability is that this will have been done by person or persons unknown with no readily tracable link to any government. After all Russia would not be the only government to use subversive or terrorist organisations to do their dirty work.

and Western europe isnt innocent of this either!!

I feel no Government is innocent.

State Terrorism

It may prove impossible to prove who actually did the deed and who ordered it to be done.Trying to find a link back to the Russian Government, if they are actually responsible, will be a waste of time .They have had years of experience hiding their tracks.

The probability is that this will have been done by person or persons unknown with no readily tracable link to any government. After all Russia would not be the only government to use subversive or terrorist organisations to do their dirty work.

and Western europe isnt innocent of this either!!

I don’t know if the Russian govenrnment did the deed, but it worth asking
if not them, then who did kill him? Then ask yourself “who had the most to lose if he kept talking”.

If the anti-Russian bias is as strong as you and “extropiandreams” seem to think, why would someone (a Western government, etc) risk a major embarassment to simply cause more?

One thing I’ve learned from watching documentaries about the “Mob”…is sometimes they make a very public killing in order to keep people in fear.
The logic seems to be “since you’re going to be suspected anyway, make sure the victim suffers a horrible death to keep your enemies in line”.

but didn’t they always ask? …And then they missunderstands the typical Russian way of handeling the principilityes of open governmenting by making assumptions that couse they’re beeing grumpy when asked, they must hide something….
media automatically assumes that the public would only understood russian news if you forge them into some modell or even a clisee….and when some russian opposite politican dies, the clisee requires that you start blaming the government of Russia, and the way Russians have always responsed to this sort of media coverance only fuels the medias inbuild imago of russia that it wants to impose to its readers….

Such a huge response to this original observation must mean something?.. Politically it will eventually be concluded with ‘many words’ falling short of directly accusing anyone!.. There is too much at risk for it to be any other!… Best wishes ..D.J.

You are correct as all this will be concluded with “many words” and will fall short of directly accusing anyone!

Putin said today in Helsinki that Litvinenko’s death bed letter accusing him of being “barbaric and ruthless” was a forgery faked by the spy’s wife and father.

COBRA, the Cabinet’s emergency security committee met in Downing Street, chaired by John Reid, the Home Secretary, after toxicologists confirmed that the former KGB colonel had a large dose of alpha radiation in his body. They considered the risk to the public after the discovery of radioactive material in a sushi bar and at the Millennium Hotel, where Litvinenko held meetings on November 1. Polonium-210 traces were also found at his family home in Muswell Hill and at two other places today in London: Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, and an office block in Down Street, west London.

According to The Times, the quantity of polonium-210 used could only have been obtained from a nuclear installation, scientific experts said.

The Times quoted “security sources” as saying M15 and M16 are aiding Scotland Yard in the investigation. But as you say, it is highly unlikely that any direct accusations will be made.

Such a huge response to this original observation must mean something?.. Politically it will eventually be concluded with ‘many words’ falling short of directly accusing anyone!.. There is too much at risk for it to be any other!… Best wishes ..D.J.

The Anti Russian media thing is getting a bit out of hand really too, It still looks far too messy to be any of the Secret Services of any nation really and seems almost aimed at publicity.

The Ukrainian President was poisoned and almost died; lost his looks and aged many years but he was lucky to survive. We’ll never have direct evidence for FSB involvement (you wouldn’t with highly trained operatives) but the pro-Russian factions in Urkraine were supported by Putin. Put it this way, who had most to gain with his death? Or will the Russians say he poisoned himself to discredit them as they are now unbelievably saying Litvinenko did! :diablo: 😀

The Russians are putting out spin (through paid PR companies and spokesmen in London) saying Litvinenko committed suicide to embarrass Putin! 😮 😀 😀 😀 . He died in excruciating pain, had a young son, [irony on…sorry to spell it out 😮 ] so of course he would chose to top himself in such a painful way [irony off] when he could have chosen many other less painful ways of making the same point! The Russians even said there was no proof his death was not natural! (i.e hair falling out, dramatic ageing etc etc :p ) 😀 😀 😀

In addition, Polonium-210 (“hotspots” now found in at least five different locations in London today including Litvinenko’s last two known meeting places, Itso sushi bar (they do nice lunches) and the Millenium Hotel) is not easily obtainable, normally coming from a nuclear reactor, unless you are Marie Curie and her husband :rolleyes:. Marie Curie took many years to refine several tons of pitchblende (uranium ore), progressively concentrating the radioactive components, and eventually isolating Polonium (named after Marie’s native Poland) and radium. Marie Curie got cancer by the way because of her close proximity to the pitchblende during the purifiying process.

Mr Litvinenko was close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya , who was shot dead last month in Moscow, and said recently he was investigating her murder.

Politkovskaya was an opponent of Putin and especially the war in Chechnya. She exposed a lot of the the state-sponsored terror tactics of our “ally” in the war on terror, such as the use of thermobarbic (fuel-air) bombs against civilians. Another opponent of the Chechan war was General Lebed who negotiated the end of the first Chechan war in 1996 and opposed further war (and was killed in a helicopter crash in 2002).

Litvinenko wrote “Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within”, in which he said that it was FSB agents and not Chechen rebels who carried out the apartment block bombings in 1999, killing more than 300. (Litvinenko’s immediate boss was Putin). However, a climate of fear was created that led to a state of emergency being declared. The killers have never been found.

The moscow apartment attacks helped swing public opinion behind Russia’s second war in Chechenya, when Putin launched a huge Russian military offensive later that year. Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999 and made Putin the acting President. Putin was not the most popular candiate before he pulled away from the other candidates and won the Presidential election in the first round in March 2000 on a wave of populism after the “victories” in Second Chechen war.

Putin’s first act on becoming President was to sign a presidential decree giving Yelstin and his family full immunity from prosecution! 😉 (bit like Gerald Ford did for Nixon when he resigned – see, birds of a feather! :diablo: 😀 ). Shortly before, Yeltsin and his family had been under investigation for money-laundering by the Russian and Swiss authorities (the Swiss homed in on an Amex bill of Yelstin’s daughter Tatyana (now enjoying herself sometimes in London)) and for allegedly taking bribes from the Swiss company Mabetex,that won lucrative Kremlin construction contracts.

Putins enemies sure have a nasty habbit of dying.

General Lebed was killed in a Mi-8 helicopter crash in 2002.

He led negotiations which ended the First Chechen War in 1996 and came third in the 1996 Presidential elections and was a contender to suceed Yelstin.

In 1997, Lebed alleged in an interview with Sixty Minutes that the former Soviet Union had lost some suitcase-sized nuclear weapons.

Both the US and Russia denied Soviet suitcase bombs were placed in various sites in continental America and Europe to be ready by special forces (apparently under KGB control rather than GRU military intelligence).

President Putin said in an interview with Barbara Walters in 2001 said “I don’t really believe this is true. These are just legends…. but there is no documentary confirmation of those developments.” Instead of denying they even existed, I suppose it would have gone against the grain for Putin to say yes ‘we had suitcase bombs already in place ready to blow up cities in America or Europe’.

Putin as the former head of the KGB/FSB would have known what the defector Lunev (a former GRU officer) said about the minature nuclear bombs (similar to an artillery shell in a suitcase): they were called RA-115s (RA-115-01s for submersible weapons) weighed 50-60llbs and lasted for many years wired to an electric source and with a battery backup. If the battery failed, the weapon had a transmitter to send a coded message by satellite or directly to GRU operatives at Russian embassies. Lunev, said the number of “missing” nuclear devices (as per General Lebed) was almost identical to the number of strategic targets upon which those bombs would be used”.

Putins enemies sure have a nasty habbit of dying.

Elie Hobeika, the Lebanese Phalangist leader and commander of the fighters at the Sabra/Shatila massacre, was was killed on in 2002 by a car bomb. His deputy, Dr Jean Ghanem, had crashed his car and died soon after a few days before. Hobeika had said Ghanem’s death was not accidental.

Elie Hobeika publicly declared his intention to testify against Ariel Sharon about his involvement in the Sabra/Shatila massacre in a Belgian court’s trial for crimes against humanity. This would have been politically very embarrassing for Israel.

Hobeika told Belgian Senator Dubie a few days before his death that he had revelations about the Sabra/Shatilla massacres but felt threatened.

Dubie asked him why he did not reveal all immediately, but Hobeika said: “I am saving them for the trial”.

Lebanese Interior Minister Elias Murr accused Israel of being behind the car bomb, citing a trace on the license plates of the car but this was denied by Israel.

I would add we’ll never know who planted the car bomb (4 oxygen cylinders in his own car enhanced the explosion) as he had plenty of enemies. Hobeika had his hand in a lot of murders himself if you accept allegations in a book published in 1999 by his former bodyguard, Robert Hatem, accusing his former boss of masterminding assassinations and crimes.

…its amazing how much you can do with cold war era prejuctions and baseless accusations…

I don’t know if the Russian govenrnment did the deed, but it worth asking
if not them, then who did kill him? Then ask yourself “who had the most to lose if he kept talking”.

If the anti-Russian bias is as strong as you and “extropiandreams” seem to think, why would someone (a Western government, etc) risk a major embarassment to simply cause more?

One thing I’ve learned from watching documentaries about the “Mob”…is sometimes they make a very public killing in order to keep people in fear.
The logic seems to be “since you’re going to be suspected anyway, make sure the victim suffers a horrible death to keep your enemies in line”.

the blur is why would they take such a gamble.. because having more FSB defect would simply be unacceptable and a far greater threat than an international hit.