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*Litvinenko 'did not have to flee' *Reporters told of crimminal oligarchs Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy who was murdered in London, was a thug and a thief who had no need to flee to Britain because he was so insignificant, President Putin said yesterday. Litvinenko had not been privy to state secrets and was dismissed from the Federal Security Service (FSB) “for beating people during detentions when he was a security service officer and for stealing explosives”. Mr Putin said: “He got a three-year suspended sentence and there was no need for him to flee. He had said all the...

(AP) LONDON -- British police have concluded that a former Russian spy was poisoned by a lethal dose of radioactive Polonium-210 added to his tea at a London hotel, British and American television stations reported Friday. Investigators have identified the teapot believed to have contained the radioactive tea, which eventually killed Alexander Litvinenko in November, Sky News said, citing unnamed Scotland Yard officials. ABC News had a similar report, citing an unidentified official. Police officials and a spokesman at the hotel declined to comment on the reports. The reports also said police have identified another former Russian spy, Andrei Lugovoi,...

British officials say police have cracked the murder-by-poison case of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, including the discovery of a "hot" teapot at London's Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for Polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing. A senior official tells ABC News the "hot" teapot remained in use at the hotel for several weeks after Litvinenko's death before being tested in the second week of December. The official said investigators were embarrassed at the oversight. The official says investigators have concluded, based on forensic evidence and intelligence reports, that the murder was a "state-sponsored" assassination orchestrated by Russian...

The British government is preparing to demand the extradition of a Russian businessman to stand trial for the poisoning with polonium-210 of the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko. Senior Whitehall officials have told the Guardian that a Scotland Yard file on the murder which is about to be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service alleges that there is sufficient evidence against Andrei Lugovoi for the CPS to decide whether he should face prosecution. Read More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1999204,00.html

The killings of former security services agent Alexander Litvinenko and journalist Anna Politkovskaya were "well thought-out provocations" meant to hurt the Kremlin's public image, a senior presidential aide says. The aide, Igor Shuvalov, also takes issues with those who blame Litvinenko's death on President Vladimir Putin. "It is foolish to link this murder to the head of the country," Shuvalov said Wednesday in Berlin at a high-profile discussion of Russian-German relations, Ekho Moskvy radio reported Thursday. Litvinenko accused Putin of ordering his murder in a statement released after his death. A fierce critic of Putin, the former KGB and Federal...

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

British Police Identify Suspected Killer of Poisoned Ex-Russian Spy January 21, 2007 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....

• The treatment of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko has provided further proof of the bankruptcy of the prevailing Western interpretation of Putin’s Russia. This paper shows that the theory can exist only with the suspense of the standard faculty of rational thinking. For example, President Putin was widely assumed to be guilty without any evidence being considered necessary. • The causes of this alarming failure should be sought in the gradual ossification of Western liberal democratic ideology into an unbending orthodoxy. In particular, the orthodoxy is failing to accommodate the spontaneous, internal liberation in Russia and China, treating...

Police believe Litvinenko poisoned twice By David Harrison, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:29am GMT 07/01/2007 Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, was the victim of a "double hit" by the assassins who poisoned him with radioactive polonium-210, police believe. Traces of polonium have been found at Pescatori Detectives suspect that Mr Litvinenko, 44, who lived in north London, was first poisoned several days before he was attacked at a central London hotel on November 1. Officers had initially believed he was first poisoned that day at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly, central London, when he met Mario Scaramella, an...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An acquaintance of a former Russian agent killed by radiation poisoning in London said in a television interview that Alexander Litvinenko, who accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder, had planned to blackmail a wealthy Russian businessman. Russian Julia Svetlichnaya said she was a graduate student in London when she spoke to Litvinenko -- a former Russian state security officer who died on November 23 in London after ingesting polonium 210 -- about a book she was writing. "He told me ... he's doing a project for blackmailing one of the Russian oligarchs (exiled...

Some of the former Yukos executives could be involved in the murder of Russian security service defector Alexander Litvinenko, Russia's top prosecutors said Wednesday. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office said Leonid Nevzlin, a core shareholder of the bankrupt oil company, who lives in Israel and is on the international wanted list on fraud charges, could have ordered Litvinenko's poisoning with polonium-210. "We are checking a version that people, who are on the international wanted list for grave crimes, including [former] Yukos co-chairman Leonid Nevzlin, could be behind these crimes," the office said, referring to Litvinenko's murder and an attempt on...

Leonid Nevzlin, a former Russian oil billionaire, yesterday dismissed allegations by Moscow that he ordered the radioactive poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. Mr Nevzlin said he had co-operated with British authorities investigating the murder of the dissident Russian ex-spy in London. The Russian prosecutor-general's office said on Wednesday that it suspected Israel-based Mr Nevzlin might be involved in the death of Mr Litvinenko, who died in a London hospital on November 23 from exposure to highly toxic polonium-210. Mr Nevzlin, who is visiting the US, fled to Israel in 2003 to continue managing the affairs of the Russian oil giant Yukos...

MOSCOW, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Russian prosecutors said on Wednesday that Leonid Nevzlin, a former top manager of the YUKOS business empire, could have ordered the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko. "A version is being looked at that those who ordered these crimes could be the same people who are on an international wanted list for serious and very serious crimes, one of whom is ... Leonid Nevzlin," Russia's prosecutor-general's office said in a statement posted on its Web site www.genproc.gov.ru. [...] A trusted business partner of jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin has provoked the Kremlin's...

The Polonium Diversion At least a dozen people have been contaminated by the rare radioactive isotope Polonium 210. The list includes Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB who died from a dose of Polonium 210 in London on November 23rd; Andrei Lugovoi, a former colleague of Litvinenko in the KGB, who met with Litvinenko at the Pine bar of the Millennium Hotel in London the day he became ill, November 1st; Dmitry Lugovoi, Lugovoi’s business associate, who also attended that November 1st meetings; 7 employees of the Millennium Hotel; Mario Scaramella, an Italian security consultant, who dined with...

ROME - An Italian who met with an ex-KGB agent the day the Russian fell fatally ill from radiation poisoning was arrested on Sunday, the man's father said. The accusations against Mario Scaramella _ international arms trafficking and slander _ were not believed to be directly related to the investigation into the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko. Scaramella, who is the first person connected to the poisoning case to be arrested, met Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on Nov. 1, the day the former KGB agent fell ill. Litvinenko died of poisoning from radioactive polonium-210 on Nov. 23. The...

Dead spy's Italy contact arrested Mario Scaramella met Mr Litvinenko the day he fell ill Police have arrested an Italian man who met Russian former spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill from poisoning, Italian news agencies said. The two men met at a London sushi bar on 1 November. Mr Litvinenko died on 23 November from radiation poisoning. Mario Scaramella is being investigated in Italy for arms trafficking and violating state secrets. Scotland Yard said the arrest in Naples was not part of their investigation into Mr Litvinenko's death. Mr Scaramella was arrested on his return from London....

24/12/2006 - 2:18:23 PM Italian who met spy Litvinenko arrested  :: latest Police today arrested an Italian security expert who met former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill from poisoning. Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples, where he landed on his way back from London, Italian news agencies reported. Rome prosecutors have been investigating Scaramella for violating secrets of his office and possible arms trafficking. Scaramella met Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on November 1, the day the former spy fell ill. On his deathbed on November 23, Litvinenko - a former KGB agent and harsh...

BRITISH investigators believe that Alexander Litvinenko's killers used more than $US10 million of polonium-210 to poison him. Preliminary findings from the post mortem examination on the former KGB spy suggest that he was given more than ten times the lethal dose. Police do not know why the assassins used so much of the polonium-210, and are investigating whether the poison was part of a consignment to be sold on the black market. They believe that whoever orchestrated the plot knew of its effects, but are unsure whether the massive amount was used to send a message - it made it...

Litvinenko 'killed over dossier' Saturday December 16, 06:34 AM An ex-business associate of Alexander Litvinenko has said that the former Russian spy was murdered because of information he held on a powerful Kremlin figure. Ex-spy Yuri Shvets said Mr Litvinenko was commissioned by a reputable UK firm to provide information on Russia. He told BBC Radio 4 that Mr Litvinenko was poisoned after his dossier containing damaging details was deliberately leaked to the high-ranking Moscow figure. Mr Litvinenko died in London on November 23 from polonium-210 radiation poisoning. Mr Shvets said: "I cannot really be 100% sure, but I am...

Russian unit may have got polonium to kill Litvinenko By Duncan Gardham Last Updated: 1:41am GMT 16/12/2006 A special unit of the Russian secret service could have provided the polonium that killed the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, The Daily Telegraph has learned. Sources in Russia have suggested that a secret unit called Department V could have obtained the radioactive substance that has left a trail across Europe. Polonium 210 is only produced in a small number of state-controlled facilities and Department V, also known as Vympel, is charged with guarding Russia's nuclear installations. The "Spetsnaz", or special forces unit...