British Police Identify Suspected Killer of Poisoned Ex-Russian Spy

LONDON — Police have identified the man they believe poisoned Alexander Litvinenko. The suspected killer was captured on cameras at Heathrow as he flew into Britain to carry out the murder.

Friends of the ex-spy say that the man was a hired killer, sent by the Kremlin, who vanished hours after administering a deadly dose of radioactive polonium-210 to Litvinenko.

He arrived in London on a forged EU passport and reportedly slipped the poison into a cup of tea he made for Litvinenko in a London hotel room. Litvinenko was reportedly able to give vital details of his suspected killer in a bedside interview with detectives just days before he died on November 23 at University College Hospital.

Police have decided not to publish pictures of this man, who was seen on CCTV cameras as he flew in from Hamburg on November 1, the day that Litvinenko fell ill.

He is described as being tall and powerfully built, in his early thirties with short, cropped black hair and distinctive Central Asian features.

He reportedly traveled on the same flight as Dimitri Kovtun, a Russian businessman who is being investigated for trafficking the radioactive material used in the poison plot.

Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB agent and friend of Litvinenko, who has worked closely with police on the investigation, said: “This man is believed to have used a Lithuanian or Slovak passport. He did not check into any hotel in London using the name or that passport, and he left the country using another EU passport.”

German police are investigating how polonium-210 was found in various locations Kovtun visited in Hamburg.

He is surely a hired gun. Who hired him is the million dollar question.

Well my feeling is still, that he more than likely 'in the past tense if not; then the more hype this gets as to the I.D.; he soon will be.

Believe when this first occurred; that it was said that the 'friend' and other man present; returned to Russia and were 'in hospital' because of their exposure; and not available for comment. . .think that info, still stands.

. . .as for a million-dollar question; have to say; not to me. I have no doubt that Putin ordered the job done. You can take the man out of the KGB; but you cannot take the KGB out of the man; particularly when it serves his best interest.

Here is more about Igor Vlasov, 46:

Litvinenko was murdered by a killer with three false passports

AIA reported exactly a month ago that Scotland Yard investigators had some information about the possible killer of the Russian ex-security service officer Alexander Litvinenko, according to former agent of KGB in Britain Oleg Gordievsky. He told his version to Radio Liberty this week again.

Gordievsky said that, already in the first days of the probe, Scotland Yard detected some illegal visitor, who arrived in London from Hamburg under the forged documents November 1. The man, a professional killer, arrived in Heathrow under the forged EU passport to pass unnoticed. Then the killer changed the passport for another passport of the EU. He left the same night after Litvinenko's poisoning (or perhaps, early next day), using the third passport, Gordievsky said, specifying the detectives have a photo of the possible killer taken by the airport's surveillance cameras. His first passport was photographed as well.

Russian online paper Gazeta.ru wrote earlier that this man was mentioned in the papers, showed to Litvinenko by his Italian contact Mario Scaramella on November 1. A former spetsnaz member of the military counterintelligence, GRU, named Igor, 46, was mentioned in the dossier, allegedly delivered from Russia. His surname is not disclosed in interests of investigation.

Last month, AIA wrote, referring to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, that an eventual name of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service expert in covert operations might be Igor Vlasov. The British media outlets have reported that he is easy limps (after a car crash), perfectly knows English and Portuguese, and also the judo, has some passports and carries out functions of a professional killer. Later, owing to leakages, it became known that the suspect stopped in the beginning of November in one of the London hotels. Some editions believe that this person is involved also in the murder of the investigative journalist of the Russian Novaya gazeta, Anna Politkovskaya. It is not excluded that the man Gordievsky spoke about, and a certain Igor is one and the same person.
Gordievsky's conclusions partly coincide with the version of Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, who met with Litvinenko on the day he fell fatally ill, they had put forward in their justification.

As it was found out later, radiation had appeared in places Kovtun visited in Hamburg, Germany. Kovtun and Lugovoy explained the polonium trace with the alleged fact that the real murderer of Litvinenko wished to bring them under suspicion and followed them. According to Gordievsky, the Scotland Yard inspectors have believed the both witnesses, Gazeta.ru says.

Meanwhile, Gibson Square Books, a British publishing house, is reissuing Litvinenko's Blowing Up Russia, a controversial book and the first of a slew of planned editions that will carry the dead man's anti-Kremlin allegations around the world, as The Associated Press puts it.

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1199

Here is something else you should read or watch.

'Multiple attempts' on Litvinenko
There may have been multiple attempts to kill Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko before he died, BBC One's Panorama programme has discovered.
The first poison bid may have come two weeks before he met Mario Scaramella in a sushi bar on 1 November.

It may have been at the same restaurant, but when Mr Litvinenko met former KGB men Andrei Lugovoi and Dimitri Kovtun on 16 October.

Mr Litvinenko suffered a fatal overdose of radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Traces of the poison were discovered not where Mr Litvinenko and Mr Scaramella sat, but elsewhere in the restaurant, most likely where Mr Litvinenko met the Russians.

Where we seated there is no polonium
Mario Scaramella

Several other sites, including a hotel visited by Mr Lugovi and Mr Kovtun, were also contaminated.

'Lethal information'

Mr Scaramella, an academic, said he had no idea how polonium reached the sushi bar and denied "absolutely" taking part in the poisoning.

"I know they closed it because they found the polonium, but seems it was not in the place where we seated. So lots of things must be clarified. Where we seated there is no polonium," he said.

It was widely reported that Mr Scaramella had tested positive for polonium.

But Panorama has discovered that his initial test results were inaccurate. Subsequent tests proved negative.

Mr Litvinenko had collaborated with Mr Scaramella on an Italian KGB mole-hunt.

"Some of this information was lethal information, shall we say. Other people have been killed for this kind of co-operation," Mr Scaramella said.
'Radioactive poisons'

Mr Litvinenko's widow Marina said her husband's tea may have been spiked at another meeting with the two ex-KGB men on 1 November.

She said: "At the Millennium Hotel Sasha (Mr Litvinenko) told me he met Lugovoi and during this meeting he had drunk tea.

"He said it was tea already served, on the table, and he just took this cup of tea, and he didn't finish it at all, and how he later said tea wasn't very tasty, 'because it was cold'."

Panorama found Mikhail Trepashkin, a jailed former officer with the Russian secret service, who was ordered to monitor Mr Litvinenko in 2001.

The programme also visited Laboratory Number 12 in Moscow.

An anonymous ex-Soviet intelligence officer said: "It's the laboratory that every year gets its budget to work with radioactive poisons."

Prodi 'a KGB friend'

Panorama has also obtained a document classified "top secret" in Italy in which Mr Litvinenko accuses Italian prime minister Romano Prodi of being a friend of the KGB.

Mr Scaramella said: "Some qualified sources, including Litvinenko, told me that some officers in Moscow considered him as their man, KGB man."

Mr Litvinenko was warned off defecting to Italy "because there are some big friends of Russia in this country", he added.

Mr Prodi has always denied having KGB links.

Marina Litvinenko told Panorama the poisoning could not have been carried out without Russian President Vladimir Putin's knowledge, as he is "behind everything that happens in Russia".

Mr Putin's spokesman, Dimitry Peskov, responded: "I answer directly that Russia has not done it and it is absurd even to think about it.

"If she says that Russia has killed Sasha, she's a liar for these words."
Link: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6285631.stm

Or Watch: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6285631.stm

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