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BERLIN (Reuters) - The head of an organization of former Russian spies was quoted as saying on Thursday Moscow abandoned its policy of assassinating enemies long ago, and that Alexander Litvinenko was probably murdered by criminals. Former KGB agent Valentin Velichko said fellow former agent Litvinenko, who died in London on November 23 from radiation poisoning, was a traitor but was not killed by Moscow. "That was long ago. It belonged to the days of Stalin," Velichko, head of the Veterans of Foreign Intelligence, told Die Welt newspaper in an interview. Millions died under the rule of dictator Josef Stalin.

Little by little, the media is letting go of the "Putin-did-it" theory...because the facts keep getting in the way !

German investigators say the radioactive polonium-210 used to kill a former Russian spy in London last month would have cost $25 million on the black market. The Berliner Zeitung quoted a police source Wednesday as saying police were investigating the possibility some of Alexander Litvinenko's business activities involved the illegal smuggling of nuclear materials. "We know that there has been a demand for nuclear materials in terrorist circles for several years," the source said. Litvinenko was a former Russian spy who defected to Britain and became an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He died of radiation poisoning in...

MOSCOW - A key witness in the radiation death of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko claimed the poisoning took place earlier than is generally believed, according to a newspaper interview published Wednesday. Andrei Lugovoi, also a former Russian intelligence agent, met with Litvinenko to discuss business at London's Millennium Mayfair Hotel on Nov. 1, a few hours before Litvinenko fell ill. But Lugovoi said in an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that he thinks Litvinenko may have been poisoned two weeks earlier, on the day he and Lugovoi met another business associate, Dmitry Kovtun. Litvinenko, 43, a former...

Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the KGB and its more recent incarnation known as the FSB, is a perfect example of an intelligence officer who transferred his loyalties from his country, and the people he was entrusted to serve, to the “enemy” for reasons other than monetary gain...His areas of expertise included counter-terrorism and organized crime. For reasons unknown, Litvinenko became a supporter of the Islamic terrorists leading the rebellion in the separatist region of Chechnya, despite the fact that they had murdered hundreds of his fellow Russians. [SNIP] The fact that Litvinenko recently died as a result of...

Russia's G8 envoy says speculation surrounding the death of Alexander Litvinenko has caused 'untold damage' to the regime. The admission comes after the focus of the investigation switched to Germany, with police revealing yesterday that one of the key witnesses to Mr Litvinenko's death, Dimitry Kovtun, was contaminated with polonium-210 in Hamburg. That was several days before he met the former Russian spy in a London hotel bar. The German inquiry is focusing on whether Mr Kovtun was in illegal contact with radioactive materials. Igor Shuvalov told Channel 4 News the death was done by someone who wanted to harm...

'Walking Dirty Bomb' Tells of London Meetings By Anna Sadovnikova, Hans Hoyng, Thomas Hüetlin and Uwe Klussmann A few days before he was put in quarantine in a Moscow hospital, Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi, believed to be one of Scotland Yard's main suspects in the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, spoke to DER SPIEGEL about his meetings with the former spy. Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi during an interview on Ekho Moskvy radio in Moscow, November 23. Andrei Lugovoi, 40, former KGB agent, currently a kind of mini magnate in the Russian soft drinks industry, is the man British investigators believe left...

MOSCOW, December 11 (RIA Novosti) - The ex-wife of a witness in the case of a murdered former Russian security officer, her two children and boyfriend have been hospitalized in Germany with suspected polonium-210 poisoning, the head of the investigation team in Hamburg said Monday. He said a medical examination will show if their organisms contain a dangerous concentration of the radioactive element. Authorities did not identify them by name. Businessman Dmitry Kovtun met with defector Alexander Litvinenko around the time of his poisoning at the beginning of November. Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin's administration and a...

RUSSIAN prosecutors investigating the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy who defected to Britain, want to travel to London to question a billionaire Russian exile and a Chechen associate. The move is likely to further strain relations between Russia and Britain, which have been undermined by allegations that the FSB, the former KGB, might be involved in the killing. [...] The Russian investigators' targets are Boris Berezovsky, the London-based billionaire businessman who employed Litvinenko and is a long-time critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen exile the Russians want to extradite on charges of terrorism,...

The rotten heart of Russia By Olga Craig, Andrew Alderson and Helen Womack in Moscow, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 1:22am GMT 10/12/2006Page 1 of 5 Scotland Yard detectives have now had a week of official stonewalling. The British ambassador is being threatened by Right-wing thugs. Frustration and intimidation (and increasingly extortion) have become the norm for anyone doing business in Russia. A Moscow police officer outside the British embassy The terse communiqué should have come as no great surprise to the nine Scotland Yard detectives who flew into Moscow's Domodedovo airport last Monday. As their plane touched down, just after...

LONDON — Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent at the center of an international poisoning mystery, was buried here Thursday, his body still so radioactive that health officials wouldn't let it be displayed at a memorial service. As friends and colleagues gathered to recite eulogies, sing hymns and, once again, denounce the Russian government — which many blame for his death — the intrigue picked up yet another layer: The Russian news agency Interfax announced that a key witness and possible suspect in the case had fallen into a coma in a Moscow hospital hours after being questioned by British...

"Polonium" Restaurant Capitalizes on Ex-KGB Spy Case Business: 5 December 2006, Tuesday. The owners of a restaurant in northern England are having their hands full these days, unexpectedly capitalizing on the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. The reason for the rising popularity of the establishment in Sheffield is in its name - "The Polonium Restaurant". Ever since word broke that the former Russian spy was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210, the place has been fully packed. The Polish owner say the place was not named after the radioactive stuff, but a Polish folk band he played in some 30...

Something to Hide? by TOL 8 December 2006 If the Kremlin's hands are clean in the Litvinenko case, why won't it let British investigators do their work? When Alexander Litvinenko's remains were laid to rest in London's Highgate Cemetery on 7 December, his body was so radioactive that it had to be buried in a specially sealed casket. It will be a lot harder, however, to contain the fallout from the ex-KGB spy's death. As a week filled with a series of bizarre revelations in the Litvinenko case drew to a close, Scotland Yard detectives appeared to be inching tantalizingly...

Police in Germany say they have found indications of radiation in two properties apparently used by a contact of murdered spy Alexander Litvinenko. Dmitry Kovtun, who met the former KGB agent on the day he fell ill, is being treated in hospital in Russia. Police said traces of radiation were found at the Hamburg flat of his ex-wife and at her mother's home outside the city. Officials in Moscow said Russian police may travel to Britain.

Ambassador suffers months of harassment and BBC service in Moscow mysteriously goes off the air after the Litvinenko murderThe Russian authorities yesterday stood accused of orchestrating a campaign of intimidation against British interests in Moscow, where the ambassador has been harassed and the BBC Russian Service mysteriously taken off air. With ties between the Kremlin and London already strained by the police inquiry into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, The Times has learnt that relations with Russia risk being further damaged by other serious diplomatic disputes. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said yesterday that it had complained to the...

No Mystery Here. You don’t need a convoluted device to explain Alexander Litvinenko’s demise. The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, renegade Russian spy and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin’s government, is everywhere being called a mystery. There is dark speculation about unnamed “rogue elements” either in the Russian secret services or among ultra-nationalists acting independently of the government. There are whispers about the indeterminacy of things in the shadowy netherworld of Russian exile politics, crime and espionage. Well, you can believe in indeterminacy. Or you can believe the testimony delivered on the only reliable lie detector ever invented — the deathbed...

The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, renegade Russian spy and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin's government, is everywhere being called a mystery. There is dark speculation about unnamed "rogue elements" either in the Russian secret services or among ultra-nationalists acting independently of the government. There are whispers about the indeterminacy of things in the shadowy netherworld of Russian exile politics, crime and espionage. Well, you can believe in indeterminacy. Or you can believe the testimony delivered on the only reliable lie detector ever invented —- the deathbed —- by the victim himself. Litvinenko directly accused Putin of killing him. Litvinenko knew...

LONDON, Dec. 7 — Seven bartenders at an upscale hotel in central London have tested positive for radioactive contamination, the British authorities said Thursday, raising new questions about the radiation poisoning death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former Russian agent. In Moscow, Russia said it had opened its own criminal investigation into the death of Mr. Litvinenko, who was buried Thursday, two weeks after he died, in a private ceremony in London. Russian authorities also said a Russian businessman, Dmitri V. Kovtun, who was interviewed by British investigators in Moscow, was found to have signs of radioactive poisoning. In London,...

LONDON (Reuters) - Huddled against the December chill, the wife and young son of Alexander Litvinenko led a small crowd of mourners on Thursday at a private London funeral while confusion surrounded his deathbed conversion to Islam. Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky and separatist Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev, two of the Kremlin's most outspoken exiled critics, were among the six pallbearers who lowered Litvinenko into his grave at Highgate cemetery in north London. He was laid to rest two weeks after dying from radiation poisoning in a case that has revived echoes of the Cold War and raised tensions between London...

MOSCOW--Until a week ago, Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, was virtually unknown outside the murky world of Russian intelligence. With his death in London from a massive dose of the radioactive element polonium 210, however, his fate may lead to a fundamentally different relationship between Russia and the West. Beginning with the Yeltsin era, two U.S. administrations have muted their criticism of Russia. This was the case even in the face of a series of political murders in Russia. But if Litvinenko, a British subject, was murdered by Russian intelligence on British...