Very mysterious.
Posted on 11/25/2006 12:59:26 PM PST by GarySpFc
The death bed statement by Alexander Litvinenko blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the poison he believes took his life. But will we ever know with certainty who was responsible?
While the Health Protection Agency says Mr Litvinenko was poisoned with the radioactive substance polonium-210, the question of who was responsible persists.
The former spy's two meetings in central London on 1 November, in Piccadilly and Mayfair, may hold the key to the identity of his killer.
The former KGB agent made enemies Friends of the 43-year-old have blamed the Russian security service (FSB), as Mr Litvinenko accused it of many abuses, including the bombing of a block of flats in 1999, killing 300 people.
Others had linked his sickness directly to another focus of his criticisms, former KGB agent Putin.
Any involvement has been dismissed by the Kremlin as "nonsense", a sentiment echoed by Russia's foreign intelligence service.
The matter is now in the hands of Scotland Yard, which is investigating the case as an "unexplained death".
Security analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, who met Mr Litvinenko several times, said the media focus on the Kremlin was "lazy" and bore the hallmarks of a John Le Carre novel.
"We have to put this in a historical context," he said.
"Litvinenko's last job within the FSB was heading up the anti-corruption unit and he discovered a lot of corruption there and made a lot of enemies within the KGB."
When Yeltsin broke the KGB into different agencies such as the FSB and the SVR, the majority of its members stayed on but some went into the Duma and a third group went into legitimate business, he said.
But a "murky bunch" went into what was known as the Russian mafia.
Sophisticated poison
"My own belief, and this is speculation, is that it's not inconceivable that Anna Politkovskaya in her search for murderers within the Russian bank system discovered the contract killings were these former KGB people.
"She was killed and if Litvinenko indeed was privy to her investigations then it could well be that they will emerge as his killers."
Although the sophisticated nature of the poison suggested it could have come from the state, there was no motive, he said.
The case has caused huge interest in the UK "There was no benefit to Putin or Russian intelligence services to have a highly publicised operation like this."
And despite the continued claims linking Putin, diplomatic relationships between the UK and Russia were unlikely to be affected, he said.
Alex Pravda, an expert in Russia foreign policy and a member of international analysis organisation Chatham House, believes it is too early to say who was responsible.
"There's a lack of clarity in all this. It's a matter of speculation and I think we have to wait until there's better evidence," he said.
And the lack of coordination between Russian government and other agencies made it difficult to point the finger with any certainty, he said.
What has characterised the Litvinenko case from the start has been the way one explanation has been quickly replaced by another.
It was thallium. No, it was radioactive thallium. No, it was a cocktail of drugs. No, it was a mystery object. Now polonium-210 has been identifed.
Given the days of uncertainty about what killed him, the matter of who killed him may never be resolved.
If he was killed by a gov't team, the matter of who killed him will never be resolved. Misinformation and disinformation are being spread in the media like warm butter.
Thats the thing I cant understand. Why did we have to wait until he was dead for them to discover he was radioactive and pelonium was the killer?
"If he was killed by a gov't team, the matter of who killed him will never be resolved."
Fill in the blank PUTIN_
http://www.baranovfamily.org/
It's Pootie-Poo.
Well named, indeed.
Frankly, this is a bunch of nonsense, the leftist flakes at the BBC, now one of the most ideologically corrupt news organizations in the world, sticking up for their old friends in the Soviet Nomenklatura.
A guy like him with his experiences has bits and pieces about everybody who is anybody....... from Soros on down.
I not sure how reliable the following is:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/thomas112506.htm
MI6 believe the Polonium 210, which killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, could have come from China.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/dastych112506.htm
Not really. Polonium 210 is used in the "Staticmaster" brush, which has been around forever. Amazon will sell you a Polonium replacement element for $13.79.
So let's not even try?
Radio station Echo Moskvy reported Friday that Litvinenko converted to Islam. Litvinenko, it said, was read the Yasin surah, or prayer, and given Islamic death rites by an imam invited to the dying spy's hospital bedside.
Ekho, a prominent liberal broadcaster funded by state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom, said Litvinenko would be buried in a Muslim cemetery in London. The station cited Chechenpress, the official news agency of the wartorn republic's insurgency.
A statement dictated by Litvinenko two days before his death and read by friends on Friday said nothing about a conversion to Islam.
A commenter on LGF said that it seems suspicious about this deathbed rites / conversion story, and the source above cites Chechenpress, as if the powers that be in Russia WANT to blame "the Chechen rebels," which the poisoned guy himself said was really a drummed up situation for Putin to obtain the martial laws he has.
Who cares?
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