[GSlob]

Smuggling to iran from russia needs not to be done through England [why not New Zealand as a transit point?]- they share a water border in Caspian. Simpler, easier, no prying eyes, less possibility for the things going awry. As William of Occam used to say, "thou shalt not complicate". Why scratch one's left ear with the right hand from behind over one's groin?

[GodGunsGuts]

All good points. But it still doesn't rule out that they were involved in a smuggling operation. If so, the natural question would be where was the Polonium destined for, and why through (or to) England? Of course, he could have been just murdered by Putin's Russia. Or he could have been working for Putin's Russia and died by accident. Given what I have learned about "former" KGB defectors, I'm leaning toward the latter. As I said, time will (hopefully) tell--GGG