Posted on 11/28/2006 11:47:12 PM PST by MadIvan
The Kremlin mounted a concerted campaign yesterday to point the finger of suspicion at the billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky over the death of his friend, Alexander Litvinenko, after traces of radioactive polonium-210 were found at the London offices of the exiled Russian oligarch.
Senior figures in the Russian establishment lined up to implicate Mr Berezovsky, who employed and funded the former KGB spy.
The billionaire, who has been granted asylum in Britain, last night issued a statement mourning Mr Litvinenko’s death and saying that he had “complete faith” that Scotland Yard would conduct a “thorough and professional investigation”.
Detectives are understood to want to question Mr Berezovsky in further detail about the events of November 1, the day that Mr Litvinenko fell ill.
Mr Berezovsky has declined to explain publicly why Mr Litvinenko, who was recently given British citizenship, visited his headquarters in Mayfair that day.
The billionaire has accused President Putin’s regime of being behind the murder.
In his first comment on the Litvinenko affair Tony Blair yesterday insisted that no “diplomatic or political barrier” would be permitted to obstruct the police inquiry, even if the evidence pointed to a statesponsored killing.
The Prime Minister, who was on a brief stopover in Copenhagen on his way to the Nato summit in Riga, said that Mr Litvinenko’s death was being treated as a “very, very serious matter”.
He added: “We are determined to find out what happened and who is responsible.”
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office declared that it was ready to assist the British police. A spokesman said that British detectives would be welcome to come to Moscow and would receive the Government’s full co-operation.
Mr Blair has been kept informed of developments in the inquiry, but he is not scheduled to meet President Putin in Riga. So far the Prime Minister has not spoken to Mr Putin about the case, but will do so when the time is “appropriate”.
Mr Putin has strenuously denied that the Russian authorities had anything to do with Mr Litvinenko’s death.
Police have questioned Mario Scaramella, an Italian nuclear expert who met Mr Litvinenko at a sushi bar in Piccadilly, where evidence of the radioactive poison was found. So far polonium-210 has been found at seven locations across London.
At one of those sites — 25 Grosvenor Street, the offices of Erinys, an international security company — a spokesman said that Mr Litvinenko did not work for them but had been visiting a friend there.
As Kremlin sources made their claims against Mr Berezovsky, a number of prominent politicians in Moscow named him publicly as a key figure in the affair.
Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Duma’s foreign affairs committee, said that Mr Litvinenko was linked with “certain oligarchs, including Mr Berezovsky, who in recent years have been deprived of the chance to buy corrupt power with stolen money, and apparently cannot accept this”.
In the past Russia has tried to extradite him on financial charges but the request was refused by Britain after Mr Berezovsky argued that the charge was politically motivated.
Valery Dyatlenko, a deputy head of the security committee in the Duma, Russia’s lower house, told state television: “The death of Litvinenko — for Russia, for the security services — means nothing . . . I think this is another game of some kind by Berezovsky.”
Toxicologists tested for the presence of polonium-210 at more locations in Central London that had been visited by Mr Litvinenko on the day he fell ill.
Eight people have been sent for further tests at a specialist clinic by the Health Protection Agency to check for contamination. The agency has received more than 1,100 calls from members of the public worried that they might have been exposed to radiation, but officials insisted that there was little likelihood of any risk.
As the scale of the scare grew, John Reid, the Home Secretary, issued another statement that the risk to the public was minimal.
Special precautions will be in place for a Home Office pathologist to carry out a postmortem examination as well as a “special examination” of Mr Litvinenko’s body on Friday.
Andrew Reid, the Inner North London Coroner, said that the examination was necessary to fully investigate the cause of death.
I meant 0.00002 millionths of a gram for $69. I also take back what I said about you being humor impaired.
Thanks,
I am reading about some of this on wikipedia and other sources as we speak. Truly fascinating material.
Cheers.
It is my understanding Polonium 210 is available in many products.
The Polonium in cigarette smoke is about 0.02 pCi per cigarette smoked http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/81151933-1935.html . So you would have to smoke billions of cigarettes for a lethal dose. Of course some damage would occur long before that.
I see a lot of hysteria and nonsense - a lot of completely illogical rubbish out of Putin's defenders. We could have a videotape of Putin shooting puppies in the head with an automatic and you'd put the blame somewhere other than where it lies.
Ivan
Hey RusIvan, how did the FSB kill Khattab?==
Poisoned him. But Khattab was the real enemy the terrorist and no one denied that he was executed by FSB.
But FSb is the intrenal security organization. Something like FBI but bigger, FSB includes her own troops. According the law FSB doesn't work abroad.
It is the area of SVR (the russian CIA). Thier troopers killed by bomb the another chechen terrorsist Yandarbiev in Qatar. Again noone denied that.
Litvinenko in turn wasn't the terrorist but the minion of his master Berezovskii. Both of them are not the political figures and has no value to be a high profile targets for the execution.
Whatever Berezovskii and his minions did (Politkovskaya, Litvinenko) Putin can safely disregard. They all has almost zero influence in russia. But Putin with his 75% rate and only 2-years left of his second term has nothing to gain by killing them. But thier master Berezovskii has all benefits. He is the master of provocations so he could sacrifice his minions to create such provocation.
Again notice that those killings happened exactly during Putin visits in Europe. IMO it is not coincedence. It was done to undermine Putin visits to EU.
"I'm sure anyone could get Polonium 210 from your nearest
pharmacy. "
I’m sure that in 1985, Polunium was available at every corner drug store, but in 1955, it was little hard to come by....
This is not without precedent, however -
Flamboyant murders are not unknown in the KGB. Putin is ex-KGB.
Regards, Ivan
Litvinenko converted to Islam?
You got that straight from Echo Moskvy didn't you?
Note the following paragraph:
Professor Dudley Goodhead, Medical Research Council Radiation and Genome Stability Unit, said: "To poison someone much larger amounts are required and this would have to be man-made, perhaps from particle accelerator or a nuclear reactor."
Thank you and goodnight.
Ivan
Here's the relevant portion from that link:
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.
There is nothing in the Western press about this - just Russia's mouthpieces. It's a smear job. And you've bought it.
Ivan
For God's sake, your "friend" has already even suggested that Litvinenko is a Muslim - and after hunting on the Net for it for a bit, there is no evidence to back this claim up. ==
Just look this one: http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1744613/posts.. "..Litvinenko had also "adopted the Muslim religion", according to the Chechen declaration, making him a "martyr" with his death. .."
Thank you for the response. So what does the Oligarch have to benefit from this? Why would run such a high profile opeartion when he could hire a few Minsk mafia people to gun "the traitor" down?
Ivan
Th elink I gave above was kille by FR. So it is the source.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/41BFF9FF-9189-4AF2-B71C-3872D2D654CE.htm
Your link doesn't work. The claims came from Pravda and Echo Moskvy.
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