Posted on 11/23/2006 3:18:14 PM PST by MadIvan
The poisoned Russian spy breathed defiance at the Kremlin as the effects of a mystery cocktail pushed him to the brink of death.
“I want to survive, just to show them,” Alexander Litvinenko said in an exclusive interview just hours before he slipped into unconsciousness.
Too weak to move his limbs and visibly in great pain, the former Russian intelligence officer suggested that he knew that he may not win his struggle against the lethal chemicals destroying his vital organs. But he said the campaign for truth would go on with or without him.
“The bastards got me,” he whispered. “But they won’t get everybody.”
As he spoke, the former Kremlin bodyguard Andrei Luovoi, who has been accused of carrying out the poisoning, told The Times that he was not involved and was prepared to travel to London to prove his innocence.
Mr Litvinenko, 43, uttered his defiant words to Andrei Nekrasov, a friend and film-maker, who has visited him in University College Hospital in London every day this week. Mr Nekrasov described last night the extraordinary scenes in hospital, where one ward looks like a scene from The Godfather.
All visitors are screened and photographed by armed police officers. They are then ushered into a darkened room where Mr Litvinenko lies in excruciating pain.
“Sasha (Litvinenko) was a good-looking, physically strong and courageous man,” Mr Nekrasov told The Times. “But the figure who greeted me looked like a survivor from the Nazi concentration camps.”
Although he has seen Mr Litvinenko sometimes more than once a day, Tuesday was the last occasion on which his friend could communicate properly. Yet in some of his final remarks before losing consciousness, the former spy remained defiant in his battle against President Putin and the Russian security services.
He also managed a joke at his own expense, suggesting that his poisoning was proof that his campaign against the Kremlin had targeted the right people. “This is what it takes to prove one has been telling the truth,” he said.
He was referring to allegations he made in a book, The FSB Blows up Russia, which accuses the Russian security services of causing a seriesof apartment block explosions in Moscow in 1999 that helped to propel Vladimir Putin into the presidency the next year.
Mr Nekrasov revealed last night that Mr Litvinenko’s British citizenship had come through the last time they met, the day of a service at Westminster Abbey for Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist friend and critic of the Kremlin who was murdered in Moscow.
“We discussed the likelihood of another killing. Sasha warned me not to go back to Russia because it was too dangerous,” Mr Nekrasov said. “Very sadly he turned out to be the next victim, attacked in the perceived safety of Central London.”
On Wednesday night Mr Litvinenko suffered a heart attack. He is now unconscious on a life-support system.
Doctors continue to be baffled about what Mr Litvinenko ingested on November 1, at the first of two meetings with Russians. Geoff Bellingan, director of critical care at University College Hospital, said: “There was a dramatic deterioration in Alexander Litvinenko’s condition overnight and he is critically ill in intensive care.”
He said doctors were now convinced that the cause was not a heavy metal such as thallium, as originally suspected. Nor had he swallowed any mystery objects. “Radiation poisoning is also unlikely. Despite extensive tests, we are still unclear as to the cause.”
Andrea Sella, a chemistry expert at University College, said that every day made it more difficult to identify the poison. “They have to find some unspecified poison. They don’t know whether it is a single substance or a mixture,” Dr Sella said. Even if doctors can identify it, experts speculated that it could be too late to save Mr Litvinenko, more than three weeks after he was poisoned.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Bump.
dRUDGE SAYS HE DIED.
Scotland Yard has taken over the investigation.
Regards, Ivan
Barbari sunt, barbarice egit.
Yahoo news and AP, also:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1743196/posts
More news of Litvinenko's death.
“The bastards got me,” he whispered. “But they won’t get everybody.”
What a great line. RIP
Regards, Ivan
"This ends any consideration we should have for Putin. It's "talk to the hand" time for him."
I wish. Unfortunately, naive Bush keeps pacifying Putin and Putin keeps stabbing him in the back.
Here's the good news. Russia is losing 700,000 people a year. Ha Ha Ha.
Regards, Ivan
Thanks, Ivan.
What a pity....my gosh, and so soon after that journalist was murdered.
"Ricin: Poison derived from the beans of the castor oil plant and devel-oped as a toxic weapon during the Second World War. Fast-working biological toxin, it decomposes rapidly, making it a hard-to-detect weapon for assassinations."
Communism seems to be rising from the dead faster than DemocRATic "voters" at election time. When one looks at all of the anti-America rallies taking place and at who is footing the bill for the rallies, it appears that we might have been a bit premature in writing Communism's obituary.
I think that President Bush is effusive in praise for other people..especially world leaders, as he probably feels a POTUS should be...
Also...I think he deemed Putin a "good guy" LONG ago....and probably has changed his mind...but is not going to say much, because he is trying to keep Russia from totally signing on with Iran and China.
These are guesses on my part....based on hope. I have to believe that Pres. Bush is a better judge of character than to still think Putin is anything other than a thug in a suit.
What are the symptoms of ricin poisoning?
Regards, Ivan
NO WAY....I keep reading on FR and hearing on Sean Hannity that Ronald Reagan got rid of communism.
I don't think I was here at the time...maybe I was, I just don't remember entering any debates.
I am a Bushbot..so I probably would have been inclined to trust Pres. Bush...but, not totally, because I have NEVER really believed that "The Soviet Union" was GONE...
I always figured it was still there, with different names.
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