Posted on 11/29/2006 8:15:38 PM PST by jdm
FORMER Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko feared he had been poisoned by Italian academic Mario Scaramella, it was revealed yesterday.
Pal Yuri Felshtinsky, who wrote a book with Litvinenko, 43, says the stricken ex-KGB man named the Italian in a deathbed phone call.
He told Felshtinsky, 50, that Scaramella seemed nervous and ate nothing when they met in a London sushi restaurant on November 1, after which the Russian fell ill.
Police believe a tiny grain of radioactive Polonium-210 was dropped into Litvinenko’s food. Scaramella, who headed an organisation which tracked dumped nuclear waste, has DENIED being responsible for the ex-spy’s agonising demise.
Yesterday he was being quizzed by police at a safe house in the Home Counties.
Felshtinsky, a Russian historian who moved to the US in 1978, penned the book Blowing Up Russia with Litvinenko — who died in a London hospital last week. He believes top-ranking Russian secret service officers ordered the “hit” to send out a warning to defectors — especially billionaire Boris Berezovsky, a critic of President Vladimir Putin.
Felshtinsky said: “When I talked to Alexander around 12 November about who poisoned him, we were talking only about the Italian guy Mario. He was sure at this time that it was Mario. He was telling me that he was in a scheme.”
Felshtinsky added: “There is no doubt this was done by the Russian government or FSB (Russia’s secret service). I think it was a warning. It is also a demonstration that Russia doesn’t care how the world reacts to what it is doing.”
Blowing Up Russia is banned in its authors’ homeland for “revealing state secrets”. It alleged Putin and secret service chief Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev were behind blasts at apartment blocks in their country blamed on Chechen terrorists. The book says they were intended to start a war in Chechnya and win votes for Putin.
Litvinenko met Scaramella in Piccadilly Circus. They then walked to the Itsu sushi bar, where Scaramella gave Litvinenko a list of people he said had been earmarked for assassination by a squad of ex-KGB veterans. Litvinenko is believed to have died later from a heart attack brought on by the nuclear poison.
He wrote a last deathbed testament accusing Putin of ordering his death. High levels of radiation were later found at the sushi bar — and a radiation trail blazed in Litvinenko’s wake at locations he visited afterwards.
A further five people were admitted to a clinic yesterday over fears they received radiation poisoning — taking the total to eight.
Most are understood to have been in the sushi bar when married dad Litvinenko, who lived in North London, visited. Prof Scaramella, 38, flew to Britain at Scotland Yard’s request. Police stressed he was being treated as a witness and was NOT under arrest.
The Italian said: “I’ve always said I am willing to help the police and that is why I’m here. I’ll tell them all that happened. Alexander was my friend.”
Alex Goldfarb, a business associate of 60-year-old Boris Berezovsky, said the tycoon was shocked after radiation poison was found in his offices.
Mr Berezovsky said of Litvinenko: “I credit him with saving my life. He remained a close friend ever since.”
Where's the "shock"?
Russia poisoning the guy simply makes no sense. A slow-acting poison giving him plenty of time to talk to the press certainly isn't a KGB method of operation. There's a lot more to this story than has thus far been uncovered.
"Scaramella, who headed an organisation which tracked dumped nuclear waste, has DENIED being responsible for the ex-spy’s agonising demise."
I always wondered what happened to all the nuclear (biological) waste from the former Soviet Union, often suspected it could fall into the hands of terrorists or mafia, for the right price.
Back in the late 1980s, early 1990s there were many articles about this published.
Perhaps the killers, whomever they were, intended to kill him more quickly, or perhaps it was supposed to take even longer with more subtle symptoms. As it is they might as well have shot him in broad daylight.
That would make a lot more sense. One could always blame it on the present urban condition worldwide.
There's something else afoot here.
Cool, thanks!
I think he died from a combination of global warming and high taxes.
...and possibly second hand smoke.
"Perhaps the killers, whomever they were, intended to kill him more quickly, or perhaps it was supposed to take even longer with more subtle symptoms. As it is they might as well have shot him in broad daylight."
Nah, I think the killers did it just as intended. They let the everybody know who they are but without anyway to get the amount of proof that would justify any kind of action. The Russians did it and are daring anybody to prove it's them. Just because times have changed don't mean certain national psychologies and tactics have. This is just one of the ways the Russians are famous for doing things.
Ha! Yessir!
Hi was eating uncooked sushi, so perhaps Scaramella poisoning.
The old KGB used to have a film they'd show new recruits. It was of a traitor they'd caught being lowered into an active smokestack at, I believe, a steel mill, by a crane. Just their way of sending a friendly little message.
LOL....or Salmon-ella :-)
Oh, yes. Friendly guys! :-)
I just can't automatically attribute this to KGB, though. Too easy. I'm sure this guy had cultivated a lot of potential menaces. Guess we'll just have to see what Scotland Yard comes up with ... And then the other questions will begin ...
ha ha! That's a keeper!
There was also the snuff film of putting a live guy into a crematorium.
‘We have a very simple rule: it’s a rouble to get in, but two to get out. Theoretically there’s only one way out for any member of the organisation — through the chimney of the crematorium. For some it is an honourable exit, but for others it is a shameful and terrible way to go, but there’s only one chimney for all of us.’(Suvorov goes on to describe a movie for GRU recruits, showing a live cremation at ‘The Aquarium’, GRU headquarters).— Viktor Suvorov, Inside the Aquarium.
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