Who Poisoned Alexander Litvinenko? Radioactive thallium link

[greencrow0]

From waynemadsenreport.com

December 1-3, 2006 -- In our November 30 report, thanks to our contacts in the "community," we were the first to cite a possible Polish connection to the polonium poisoning of Russian KGB and FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko. WMR has received further information on the Polish connection to the case.

Poland's neo-con government has been threatening to use its European Union veto power to block the Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal between Russia and Germany. The Polish company that has been blocked by the Baltic Sea route was formerly owned by Yukos at the time Boris Berezovsky's now jailed tycoon friend, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, led the firm.

It has now been revealed that the waitress who served Litvinenko at the Itsu sushi restaurant is from Poland. Ella Malek fears that she, too, may have been poisoned by the same radioactive polonium that was used to kill Litvinenko. Malek said the sashimi served to Litvinenko could have only been contaminated after she served it to Litvinenko because the serving boxes are covered with plastic and sealed in the kitchen prior to being served to customers. Malek and another waitress are now complaining of a persistent skin rash. Both served Litvinenko at the sushi restaurant.

It should also be noted that bismuth-209 is the precursor to polonium-210. When neutrons are fired into the bismuth nucleus, it becomes bismuth-210, which then decays into polonium-210. Bismuth is extracted from waste ores at Poland's Gierczyn tin mine.

Since 1974, Poland has been using Russian-built reactors and cyclotrons. This may account for similarities with Russian isotopes.

The Institute of Nuclear Physics (Polish Academy of Sciences) maintains a cyclotron that produces heavy radioactive isotopes like polonium. A great deal of research work on isotopes, focusing on medical uses, is conducted in Lublin at Marie Curie-Sklodowska University. Research work with bismuth and polonium also takes place at the Gdansk Institute of Technology. (Gdansk is Defense Minister Radek Sikorski's home base).

Some media sources have incorrectly reported that dangerous dosages of polonium-210 can be bought fairly easily on the open market. For example, United Nuclear Scientific Supplies of Sandia Park, New Mexico sells "exempted" polonium-210 to U.S. addresses only from a licensed Nuclear Regulatory Commission reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but in amounts too small to be dangerous.

There have also been press reports casting light on the activities of one of Litvinenko's contacts, an Italian security specialist named Mario Scaramella, who met Litvinenko in London the day the former Russian spy became ill. Although some media speculated that Scaramella was a suspect, it is reported that he, too, has been contaminated with polonium-210 but that it is not life threatening. One intelligence expert observed that the Russian-Israeli mob seems to be trying to eliminate all incriminating witnesses, one by one.

==============================

It would seem likely that those who actually poisoned the former Russian spy did not know the substance was radioactive...and thus would contaminate themselves...conveniently.

gc

[Sweejak]

Justin has another essay up:

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10098

Exile also has a story:
http://www.exile.ru/2006-December-01/toxic_avenger.html

Here is an Izvetiya story.

Izvestiya

December 1, 2006
Report by Sergey Leskov: "Polonium Will Not Burn Your Hand, But It Will Stretch Your Pocket. Russia Sells Toxic Radio Isotope Only to America"

In recent days polonium has become the best-known radio isotope, and its name is associated with Russia as directly as the words "sputnik" and "vodka." The more often people talk about polonium, the more fog and unclarity is created. Izvestiya decided to find out the whole truth about polonium-210.

The only enterprise in Russia where the isotope polonium-210 is produced is Mayak at Chelyabinsk-70, a plant that is notorious for its ecological disaster. Incidentally, Rosatom (Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency) head Sergey Kiriyenko is there at the moment -- evacuating citizens from the contaminated territory. At the reactor, they bombard with neutrons a target made from bismuth, which is converted into polonium-210. After this, it is taken to the famous All-Russia Research Institute of Experimental Physics at Sarov, where the atom and hydrogen bombs were created. At Sarov, the chemical processing of the polonium takes place and it is sealed in domestic containers.

The only country to which Russia supplies polonium-210 is the United States. A contract has been concluded between the state company Tekhsnabeksport and NRD. Prior to 2001, Britain also used to buy polonium from Russia. Russia has never had any other partners. NRD buys 8g of polonium-210 a month from Russia. It is shipped to the United States in three containers measuring 40 x 40 x 40 cm. All the operations are overseen by the FSB (Federal Security Service, the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs), and Rostekhnadzor (Federal Service for Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Oversight), and, according to Sergey Kiriyenko, the theft of even a miserly quantity of the radioactive material is inconceivable. This could be considered an official position, but I have heard repeatedly from Western specialists that the monitoring of fissile materials is significantly less rigorous in their countries than in Russia. On the world market, no other official contracts, apart from the Tekhsnabeksport-NRD contract, exist.

The production of polonium-210 is considered complex and labor-intensive compared with the production of other radio isotopes, while the profit is small. However, the task cannot be called impossible. You only need to have a reactor and a bismuth target, something that is openly on sale. But none of Izvestiya 's interlocutors was able to name any reactor in the world, apart from Russia and the United States, where polonium is openly manufactured; scientific interest in polonium was lost back in the 1960s because of its short life of 138 days. Medical equipment is also a source of neutrons, but here the radiation yield is so low that the production of polonium would be meager.

Where can ready-made polonium be found? NRD uses the isotope for the manufacture of equipment to remove static electricity in the varnish, paint, and printing industry. In the United States small doses are supplied for scientific purposes, but exporting polonium from the country is prohibited, as is the case with any fissile material. All the polonium in old equipment has lost its activeness decades ago. This radio isotope is not used in medicine because of its extremely high toxicity and, again, its "short shelf life."

Is there a "black" market in polonium? The first approach would be small reactors in countries with a low level of monitoring of fissile materials. Many participants would need to be involved in this chain. The second approach would be to open up equipment in which polonium radiation sources are installed, but this operation is difficult and dangerous to life. Nonetheless cases are known (for instance, on the Kola Peninsula) of criminals trying to open radio isotope equipment and remove the isotopes "live." As for transporting polonium-210 by plane, that is not difficult, since this isotope emits only alpha articles, reliable protection against which is provided even by paper or foil, not to mention a capsule.

[non-amnesia]

Russian minister's warning over Litvinenko case


Staff and agencies
Monday December 4, 2006
Guardian Unlimited


The Russian foreign minister today said continued suggestions of his country's involvement in the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko could damage relations with Britain.

Sergey Lavrov said he had spoken to the UK's foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, "about the necessity to avoid any kind of politicisation of this matter, this tragedy", Russia's RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

"If the British have questions, then they should be sent via the law enforcement agencies between which there are contacts," Mr Lavrov said.



He did not specify what he would consider to be politicisation of the Litvinenko case.

The minister denied reports that Russian diplomats had been instructed to lodge a protest with British authorities over the publication of a letter written by Mr Litvinenko on his deathbed in which he blamed the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for the poisoning.

"Diplomats have not received and could not receive such orders," he said, according to Russian news agencies.

A team of nine officers from Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism unit flew to Moscow today to continue their inquiries into the former spy's death.

They are planning to interview those who met Mr Litvinenko on the day he was allegedly poisoned by the radioactive isotope polonium 210 in London last month.

Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer who met the 43-year-old at the Millennium hotel in Mayfair, is likely to be among those spoken to.

Two other Russian men were also at the meeting in Grosvenor Square - Mr Lugovoi's business associate Dmitry Kovtun and another man, said to be Vyaceslav Sokolenko.

The Scotland Yard detectives are likely to be shadowed by local police during their mission to Moscow, but the home secretary, John Reid, insisted diplomatic considerations would not constrain the investigation.

"British police will be going to Russia to continue their inquiries, and [will] continue to go wherever the evidence leads," Mr Reid said. "This investigation will proceed as normal, whatever the diplomatic or whatever the wider considerations."

In Russia, the prosecutor general's office said it had agreed to help Scotland Yard officers in the inquiry.

Friends of Mr Litvinenko said British investigators should insist on seeing Mikhail Trepashkin, another former KGB intelligence officer, while they area in Russia.

Mr Trepashkin, who is serving a four-year sentence in a Urals prison for divulging state secrets, alleged in a letter last Friday that the Russian FSB state security service had created a hit squad to kill Mr Litvinenko and other enemies of the Kremlin.

"Mr Trepashkin has substantive information that might be of interest to investigators, and his lawyers are prepared to facilitate contact with him," Mr Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb told Reuters.

Mr Reid updated his European counterparts on the latest developments in the inquiry during talks in Brussels, part of the government's policy of widening cooperation as the investigation continues.

"I am informing my European colleagues of developments in the case and reassuring them so that they are aware that any health threat is absolutely minimal, so far as we can tell," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/articl ... 57,00.html

[non-amnesia]

Trepashkin may testify to Scotland Yard in Litvinenko case


MOSCOW. Dec 4 (Interfax) - Former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Mikhail Trepashkin, who is serving as prison term for divulging state secrets, is ready to testify to Scotland Yard officers in the case of former officer of Russian special services Alexander Litvinenko.

"He [Trepashkin] says that he possesses information that may shed light on the murder. And he is ready to speak out," Yelena Liptser, a lawyer for Trepashkin, said at a press conference on Monday in Moscow.

Trepashkin told his lawyers about his readiness to testify in Nizhny Tagil, where he is serving his sentence, she said.

http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28. ... e=11641422

[non-amnesia]

Alexander Litvinenko confessed to his father to a wish to be buried as a Moslem

Moscow, December 4, Interfax – Former FSB lieutenant colonel Alexander Litvinenko, who died recently in London from radioactive poisoning, had contemplated conversion to Islam not long before his death, his father has said.

‘He had these questions; he was thinking about it’, Walter Litvinenko said answering a question about his son’s conversion to Islam in an interview with Kommersant on Monday.

Litvinenko senior also told the newspaper that during one of his visits to the hospital he said to his son, ‘I have put a candle to St. Sergious of Radonezh and prayed for your soul’ and in response to these words Alexander confessed that he wanted to be buried according to Moslem tradition.

“I said, ‘Well, son, it will be as you wish. You will be another Moslem in our family, the daughter being married to a Kabardinian. The most important thing is to believe in the Almighty as there is one God. The most important thing is to refuse to live according to satanic laws”, W. Litvinenko said.


http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=2333

[non-amnesia]

Italian politician fears he is next on hitlist


Barbara McMahon in Rome
Monday December 4, 2006
The Guardian


As Mario Scaramella's condition remained stable in hospital, the Italian politician who worked with him on a commission of inquiry into KGB activity in Italy said he feared for his own life.

Speaking in Rome at the weekend, Senator Paolo Guzzanti claimed he could be the next man to be poisoned because his name was mentioned in a list of people that the Russian secret service was allegedly targeting. He said the journalist Anna Politskovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko had already been killed. "And now there's Scaramella," he said. "I'm worried and I'm also worried for my family."



His name appeared on two emails, said to have been written by an agent of the FSB, the Russian agency formerly known as the KGB, which lists those who have become a thorn in the side of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. It also gives details of a potential assassin, a judo expert who speaks English and Portuguese.

Mr Guzzanti, who added to alarm about Mr Scaramella's condition by claiming that the 36-year-old had been told he would eventually die from polonium contamination - a fact not confirmed by doctors - said he himself would undergo medical checks as a precaution.

The Italian politician remains at the centre of controversy in his own country about his role as president of a parliamentary commission set up in 2001 to investigate KGB activities in Italy. It has been claimed that he and other centre-right politicians used the commission as a means of trying to discredit leftwing opposition MPs, including the now prime minister, Romano Prodi, by claiming they had Russian connections.

Italian news agencies have reported that staff at a court on the island of Ischia, where Mr Scaramella attended a hearing earlier this month, are refusing to return to work until they have safety assurances.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/articl ... 94,00.html

[Sweejak]

Intermission with flashback:

http://tinyurl.com/wyf9v

[sec.] That K.A.L. 007 changed altitude and speed as it entered and flew over Sakhalin Island in Soviet territory, without reporting to Tokyo air traffic controllers as required under international aviation procedures.

[sec.] That near the end of the flight, Tokyo air traffic controllers received reports, ostensibly from K.A.L. 007, about and altitude change by the airliner that never tok place.

[sec.] That the airliner changed course over Sakhalin Island without reporting to Tokyo air traffic controllers.

[sec.] That early in the flight K.A.L. 007 must have made an unreported turn to the north toward Soviet territory.

[sec.] That the tape of the airliner's final radio transmission says something quite different from what the International Civil Aviation Organization (I.C.A.O.) claimed it said in a report that U.S. officials have heralded as "authoritative."

[sec.] On August 23, 1984, attorney Melvin Belli, who represents several relatives of those who died in the disaster, reported on West German television station ARD a conversation he had in Seoul with the widows of the pilot and co-pilot of K.A.L. 007: "They told me that the captain and the co-pilot were paid to intentionally take this shortcut over Russian territory. They made this statement voluntarily in the presence of three other American attorneys and thirty bereaved persons. The widows said that K.A.L. paid its pilots special bonuses for flying over Russian territory. The widows, furthermore, stated that the pilots had become so afraid of these flights that they wanted to discontinue them." Another lawyer present during the conversation told The Nation that Capt. Chun Byung-in's widow said that Chun had told her Flight 007 was an especially dangerous mission.

-==============
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Norma ... _USNS.html

Ted Koppel admitted years later, "This was at a period when the President was very much interested in portraying the Russians as being a bunch of barbarians, was very much interested in getting the Strategic Defense Initiative program going. It all fit very nicely, didn't it, to have this image of the Russians at that time knowingly shoot down a civilian airliner?"

Nightline's programs on KAL 007 featured a steady parade of hawks like Richard Viguerie, William Buckley, George Will, William Safire ("a brutal act of murder"), Jesse Helms ("premeditated, deliberate murder") and John Lofton ("sever diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union"). Koppel himself stated there wasn't "any question that the Soviet Union deserves to be accused of murder, it's only a question of whether it's first degree or second degree."

On Nightline "007 Day Three," Koppel promoted an on-air telephone poll asking viewers whether the administration "should take strong action against the Soviets." Over 90 percent said yes. On the same show, right-wing leader Terry Dolan stated that "anyone who would suggest that the U.S. would ever consider shooting down an unarmed civilian plane is downright foolish and irresponsible."

When the U.S. shot down a civilian plane five years later, Nightline's hometeam bias was evident. Instead of eight consecutive shows (followed by two more later in the month), there were only three Nightline programs focusing on the U.S. shootdown. No American foreign policy critics denounced the U.S. for murder; instead the discussion focused on "somber questions" about "the tragedy," occasionally implying that Iranians were to blame.

What can explain the disparity in coverage? In each case, Nightline meshed with the propaganda needs of the U.S. government: the Soviet action was hashed and rehashed as evidence against the Evil Empire; the U.S. action was deftly handled as a tragic mistake.

========================

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/020603a.html

GOP & KAL-007: 'The Key Is to Lie First'

By Robert Parry

At the AP, I made a small contribution to questioning the official story. I felt the released intercepts were suspicious. So I took the English language translation, as well as the original Russian, to Russian language experts, including one who taught Pentagon personnel how to translate Russian military transmissions.

The Russian language experts noted one important error in the English translation released by the State Department. In the context of the Soviet pilot trying to communicate with the KAL plane, the administration translated the Russian word "zapros," or inquiry, as "IFF" for "identify: friend or foe." The AP's experts, however, said "zapros" could mean any kind of inquiry, including open radio transmissions or physical warnings.

The significance of the mistranslation was central to the administration's case. U.S. officials had extrapolated from "IFF" to advance the "murder in the sky" argument. Since an IFF transmission can only be received by Soviet military aircraft, that was further proof that the Russians made no attempt to warn the civilian airliner.

Still, the mistranslation was only one of the ways the tapes were doctored, as Snyder discovered when the intercepts were delivered to his office for transfer into a video presentation that was to be made at the United Nations.

"The tape was supposed to run 50 minutes," Snyder observed. "But the tape segment we [at USIA] had ran only eight minutes and 32 seconds. ... 'Do I detect the fine hand of [Nixon's secretary] Rosemary Woods here?' I asked sarcastically.'"

But Snyder had a job to do: producing the video that his superiors wanted. "The perception we wanted to convey was that the Soviet Union had cold-bloodedly carried out a barbaric act," Snyder noted.

Only a decade later, when Snyder saw the complete transcripts -- including the portions that the Reagan administration had hidden -- would he fully realize how many of the central elements of the U.S. presentation were false.


"The moral of the story is that all governments, including our own, lie when it suits their purposes. The key is to lie first."

'Public Diplomacy'

Another key to the propagandists' success has been to soften up the Washington news media, to ensure that journalists were ready to accept whatever lies were told. To that end, Reagan assigned aggressive "public diplomacy" teams to intimidate and discredit the few Washington journalists who asked pointed questions and tried to get at the truth. [For details, see Robert Parry's Lost History.]

In this regard, another interesting disclosure in Snyder's book is the quasi-official USIA role played by Accuracy in Media's Reed Irvine. Irvine is commonly described as a "media watchdog" and is addressed personably as "Reed" when he appears on Koppel's "Nightline." According to Snyder, however, Irvine also was an adviser to the Reagan administration's propaganda apparatus.

=================


http://www.psychohistory.com/reagan/r136x147.htm

Provocation of the enemy was the official task of the Air Force intelligence "Ferret" program. For many years the Air Force had, been sending planes almost daily into Soviet territory to "tickle" their radar and defense systems in order to provoke responses such as the scrambling of fighters, the activation of radar and the firing of missiles. Despite the ever-present possibility that these "Ferret" provocations could start a nuclear war, American planes, according to Time, "had triggered the firings of more than 900 Soviet ground-to-air missiles, so far without a hit."(55) Over 25 aircraft had been attacked or


Washington was called "A City Without Guts" after Reagan backed off.
144

destroyed and more than 120 Americans killed in the past three decades by these secret and deadly games of provocation.(56)

The "Ferret" program included the use of commercial airliners to gather intelligence along Soviet borders. According to Ernest Volkman, National Security Editor for Defense Science, Korean Air Lines "regularly overflies Russian airspace to gather military intelligence."(57) KAL, says the Boston Globe, was essentially a military company, all of its pilots being military officers with high security clearance. U.S. army intelligence officials have admitted KAL commercial planes have in the past been equipped with side-view cameras and sent to border areas to take pictures.(58) One of these KAL commercial flights was the means used by American intelligence to provoke the enemy and give us our first sacrifice.

At the end of August, American intelligence learned that on September 1 the Soviet Union was going to test their new PL-5 missile on the Kamchatka Peninsula.(59) In order to learn all we could about the tests, we activated all our radar, infrared and radio listening posts in the area. These included the sophisticated "Cobra Dane" Air Force radar system on Shemya island at the end of the Aleutians, the "Cobra Judy" Navy ship radar system near Kamchatka, the U.S. spy satellite network, RC 135 spy planes with radar and other sensors and our regular radio monitoring posts in Japan and Alaska.(60)

U.S. intelligence watched KAL 997 fly into Soviet territory.
Whether KAL 007 was purposely sent by the U.S. into Soviet territory as part of this intelligence gathering-either equipped with cameras and other sensors or as what the intelligence community refers to as "a target of opportunity" - is as yet not known. Most of the pertinent information has been locked up by a U.S. court as a part of a liability suite against KAL and the U.S. government brought by the families of those killed. The suit claims that the military "saw and recognized radar indications" that KAL 007 was in Soviet territory but deliberately took no action to warn the crew.(61)
Whatever the reason for the flight's course deviation, all the details of the flight itself conform to a scenario of deliberate provocation of the Soviets by U.S. intelligence. As The Washington Post Magazine cover put it, "the U.S. watched" as the plane went into Soviet territory. Several
crucial facts make this conclusion virtually inescapable: (62)

[1] KAL 007 was held up for 40 minutes past its scheduled takeoff time, coordinating its arrival time [3:00 A.M.] over the Kamchatka test site precisely with the moment the American "Ferret D" spy satellite was over the same site.

[2] The plane was equipped with several backup Systems that made malfunctioning unlikely. But even if its computer was pro-grammed incorrectly and then doublechecked carelessly, its weather radar system and compass would easily have shown the pilot he was off course and over land not ocean.

[3] The pilot, who had flown the route many times before, only had to look out the window to see the lights of the towns, roads and cars on Kamchatka to know he was not over the Pacific as he was supposed to be. Yet he continued to fly deeper into Soviet territory.

[4] The pilot remained in radio contact with both Tokyo air control and a second plane, KAL 015, flying behind it, so it would have been simple for U.S. intelligence to have warned it when it saw that the Soviets had discovered KAL 007, cancelled their missile test, scrambled its fighter planes and told its pilots to follow

[5] U.S. intelligence could communicate directly to the President, the Secretary of Defense and the CIA, and could have put on their desks 10 minutes after transmission the information that KAL 007 was being chased by interceptors over Soviet ter-ritory. This would have given Reagan and his staff more than an hour and a half in the middle of a normal work day to warn the plane. Whether the President was told and then decided to allow the sacrifice or whether intelligence officers who were watching made the decision themselves is not now known.

Stories later ran in The New York Times and The Washingron Post Magazine concluding that "United States intelligence experts say that they have reviewed all available evidence and found no indication that Soviet air defense personnel knew before the attack that the target was a commercial plane"(63) and that "the entire sweep of events - from the time the Soviets first began tracking KAL Flight 007... to the time of the shootdown - was meticulously monitored and analyzed instantly by U.S. intelligence."(64) These revelations sank below national consciousness as though they had never been published.

Every detail of the government version given to the public was later shown to have been in-correct. Though Reagan said, "There is no way a pilot could mistake this for anything other than a civilian airliner," tapes later released showed pilots calling it "an RC 135." Though the President said there was no warning by the Russians, the State Department later admitted tapes showed the pilot said, "I am firing cannon bursts" before firing the missile that knocked it down, and had even said the target "does not respond to inquiries."(65) The President's claim that the Russian pilot could easily see the plane's outline in the clear moonlight was contradicted by the State Department's later admission that the Russian plane was always 2,000 feet below the airliner and could not see an outline at all. When the Soviet plane fired its warning shots, KAL 007 gave no response and continued to head straight for Vladivostok on the Soviet mainland.(66) Since the Russians have always been paranoid about their borders, and since there was no way they could possibly know the plane wasn't carrying nuclear warheads, we could reliably count on them to shoot it down. What the President had called "the Soviet massacre', was in fact the first American sacrifice of the Reagan presidency.

We projected all our bloodlust into the Russian bear.

It felt good to have 269 sacrificial victims as proof that the enemy contained all our sadism. Reagan's popularity polls rose again. NBC-TV

... Once again the American people had to taunt Reagan into more aggressive action. We even told him where to invade. "THE WAY TO ANSWER FLIGHT 007 OUTRAGE: GIVE MOSCOW HELL IN CENTRAL AMERICA," read a New York Post headline. But Central America was still being uncooperative. So Reagan turned first to two other sacrificial stages already in prepatation-Beirut and Grenada.

[judasdisney]

Just thought I'd pass along this entertaining "Daily Kos" debunking piece, which takes the trouble to let us know: The so-called "poisoning" is nonsense, all this spy stuff "doesn't ring true":

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/5/041/66385

It's a hoot what some people refuse to acknowledge

[non-amnesia]

Yard's poison murder investigators face huge extradition obstacle as they arrive in Moscow


· Exemption bars trials of citizens beyond borders
· Case damaging relations between UK and Russia

Ian Cobain, Tom Parfitt in Moscow and Nicholas Watt in Brussels
Tuesday December 5, 2006
The Guardian


The polonium-210 poisoner who claimed the life of the former spy Alexander Litvinenko may never face British justice because Russian citizens cannot be extradited to stand trial, the Guardian has learned.
As a team of Scotland Yard detectives touched down at Moscow's Domodedovo airport last night to interview a series of possible witnesses, the scale of the judicial and political problems which they are likely to face was becoming clear.

Their arrival coincided with the news that a room in the British embassy in Moscow is to be tested for radioactive contamination; it is thought that the room is where businessmen Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun gave a statement about their London meeting with Mr Litvinenko to Britain's deputy ambassador on November 23.


"It is precautionary testing to protect our staff, and we do not expect to find anything," said a spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office."It's very unusual, but then the case is unusual because radioactive material is involved."

There were also growing signs that the death of Mr Litvinenko, and the repeated claims by his associates that he was murdered on the Kremlin's orders, are damaging relations between the two states. British officials attempted to play down talk of any strain, but Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said: "It is of course damaging our relations."

Meanwhile, two fresh locations were being tested for any polonium-210 contamination last night, health officials said: Parkes hotel in Knightsbridge, where one of Mr Litvinenko's business associates stayed in October; and an office at Cavendish Place, central London, thought to be used by property and security companies.

There is no bilateral extradition treaty between Russia and the UK, and legislation passed by Russia to deal with one-off requests by European countries prohibits the extradition of its citizens. When signing up to the European convention on extradition in 1996, Russia granted itself an exemption in accordance with article 61 of the state's constitution, which says: "A Russian citizen cannot be sent beyond the borders of the Russian Federation or given to another state."

A spokesman for the prosecutor general's office said that according to the convention and the Russian criminal code, a Russian could not be given to another state for a trial: "He can only be tried in the Russian Federation with the participation of the necessary foreign experts."

Moscow lawyer Dimitri Afanasiev said that because the Russian parliament had ratified the exemption, any extradition would need parliamentary approval. "I don't see any way that it could be overruled other than by an act of parliament," he said. The only other way would be for suspects to be tried in Russia.

Also, Russia responds to any extradition request with repeated demands for the extradition of Russians in the UK. Moscow has attempted to secure the return of 16 emigres, but has been rebuffed because the Home Office accepts they are targets of politically driven prosecutions and could not expect a fair trial.

This group includes Boris Berezovsky, the multimillionaire who once employed Mr Litvinenko, and Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen separatist who lived opposite Mr Litvinenko, as well as former executives of the Yukos oil giant. Moscow has repeatedly tried to extradite Mr Berezovsky, most recently accusing him of plotting a coup.

Sergei Markov, an analyst, said he expected a politically charged bargaining process if Scotland Yard wanted to charge Russians and take them for trial in London. "The Russian authorities will raise the issue of some kind of exchange," he said. "It's clear that Russia would demand certain persons who are accused of criminal activity, including Berezovsky."

The Foreign Office confirmed last night that no one has ever been extradited between the two states. A spokesman said it it was too early to speculate on whether it expected difficulties in bringing any suspects to trial in Britain.

A team of up to nine detectives and support staff arrived at Moscow last night to interview around five potential witnesses: three Russian businessmen who were among the last to see Mr Litvinenko before he was taken ill - and who have repeatedly protested their innocence - and two others not publicly been identified. The team, headed by a detective superintendent from the Yard's new counter-terrorism command, will be given a Russian police escort as they travel around the city.

As the detectives were arriving, Mr Lavrov pointedly warned the British government against any "politicisation" of the affair. After speaking in Brussels of the way it had damaged relations, he said he had spoken directly to Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, "about the necessity to avoid any kind of politicisation of this matter, this tragedy".

Britain sought to play down his remarks. "We do not see tensions," a source said. "Sergey Lavrov is just responding to the intense media interest."

In two conversations about the affair last week, Mr Lavrov expressed concern about a "death-bed statement" attributed to Mr Litvinenko, in which he accused Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder. Mr Lavrov denied he had formally protested about the statement being allowed to be issued, but Britain is not disputing a Sunday newspaper report which claimed Mrs Beckett told the cabinet last Thursday that Moscow had "taken exception" to it.

The home secretary, John Reid, also speaking in Brussels, said he had told EU interior ministers there was little danger to the public from polonium-210: "People may feel concerned because of the fact that one millionth of one gram of polonium can result in illness or death - but the traces we are finding in places are no more than one millionth of one millionth of a gram." Meanwhile, the second man suffering from polonium-210 poisoning, Mario Scaramella, was said not to have any significant ill-effects.

In a separate development, the former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar, receiving medical care since contracting a mystery illness last month, was released from a Moscow hospital last night. Mr Gaidar, 50, fell ill in Ireland on November 24, a day after Mr Litvinenko died. His aides initially said doctors in Moscow suspected he had been poisoned, but the cause of his illness remains unknown.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/articl ... 39,00.html


SPOOK-SPEAK for 'getting ready to bust London-resident suspects'??

[Sweejak]

http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledv ... .html#more

[Sweejak]

Via Eurotrib, no time to read:

Just for the hell of it, let me play editor and kick ass in the Fox newsroom.

http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystor ... 18126/1834

[Sweejak]

FYI:
http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/110190

News 24 | November 12 2004

Amman - A leading Jordanian neurologist who regularly examined Yasser Arafat said on Friday that poisoning was the "highest" probable cause of the Palestinian leader's mysterious death and urged that an autopsy be performed.

"One of the causes of platelet deficiency is poison," said Dr Ashraf al-Kurdi, who examined a gravely ill Arafat in his besieged compound in the West Bank town of Rammallah two weeks ago.

Arafat died on Thursday in Paris, where he had flown on October 29 for treatment after tests indicated he had a low count of blood platelets, components that help clotting.

Although "not definitive, I believe the highest reason for Arafat's mysterious death is poisoning," al-Kurdi told The Associated Press in an interview on Friday.

"Therefore, there should be an autopsy performed," added al-Kurdi, who had been Arafat's personal physician for the last two decades.

There has been widespread speculation that Arafat could have been poisoned by Israel. Neither doctors nor Palestinian leaders have said what caused Arafat's death after days in a coma at a Paris hospital.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom on Thursday dismissed allegations that Israel killed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as "scandalous and false."


note:

high level of Polonium 210 was found in his body but that was discounted as the result of earlier cancer treatment.

[non-amnesia]

Russia demands the handover of Putin's critics in exchange for poison case help

THE TIMES

Tony Halpin in Moscow and Daniel McGrory

FSB is off limits, police team is told

Chief witness 'has radiation poisoning'

Russia named its price yesterday for providing help in the investigation into the death by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. It demanded that Britain hand over the enemies of President Putin who have been given asylum in London.

The ultimatum came as Russian officials imposed strict limits on how Scotland Yard detectives will be allowed to operate as they began their investigation in Moscow.

The strict conditions threatened to deepen the diplomatic rift between Moscow and London caused by the death last month by radioactive polonium-210 poisoning of Litvinenko.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, pledged this week that no diplomatic obstacles would stand in the way of Scotland Yard’s investigation. But yesterday Yuri Chaika, Russia’s Prosecutor-General, told the nine British counter-terrorism detectives that they would not be allowed to question senior officers in the FSB, Russia’s secret service.

Whitehall officials are convinced FSB agents orchestrated the poison plot, but Mr Chaika said: “The issue of the FSB authorities is not on the agenda.”

Andrei Lugovoy, the key figure of interest to the police, who was among the last people to see Litvinenko on the day he fell ill, was suddenly admitted to hospital in Moscow yesterday. He claimed that he was too ill with radiation poisoning to speak, but later from his hospital bed said that he had nothing to hide and was ready to meet the detectives.

Even when doctors decide that he is well enough to talk to investigators, the Prosecutor-General says that his men, and not Scotland Yard, will question Mr Lugovoy. In addition, British detectives will have to seek FSB approval to conduct any interviews in Moscow.

Mr Chaika said that during the interviews the British detectives “may participate with our consent, and we might also withhold our consent”.

Any trial of a Russian suspect would have to be in Moscow, he added.

Russian officials also said that the British team would not be able to interview Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSB agent who is serving a four-year sentence for disclosing state secrets. Mr Trepashkin claims to have vital information about the plot to kill Litvinenko.

At a press conference yesterday Mr Chaika again promised his full co-operation with the British inquiry, but gave little tangible sign that he will make it easy for Scotland Yard. He denied that the radioactive substance used to poison Litvinenko could have come from Russia, and emphasised that Britain would have to provide evidence to that effect before he would open a formal investigation.

Alexander Sidorov, a spokesman for the Russian prison service, said: “Trepashkin is serving a sentence for treason, therefore we cannot allow him to contact foreign security services.”

Prison officials have moved swiftly to punish Mr Trepashkin for “violating regulations”. A district court is to hear an application today to transfer Mr Trepashkin to a tougher, more secure prison, despite concerns from his lawyer about his deteriorating health.

Meanwhile, in Moscow yesterday a search was carried out at the British Embassy for traces of polonium-210 in the room visited by Andrei Lugovoy when he applied for a visa to visit Britain. Experts said they did not expect to find evidence of the radioactive substance.

In England an HPA spokeswoman confirmed that minute quantities of radiation had been found at the Emirates Stadium in North London at “barely detectable levels”. She reiterated previous advice that there was no public health concern, adding that the levels picked up were lower than natural background activity.

In a clear sign of growing diplomatic tensions, the Prosecutor-General appeared to link the Litvinenko investigation to the demands by the Kremlin for Britain to hand over Boris Berezovsky, the exiled oligarch, who is one of President Putin’s fiercest critics.

British courts have thrice rejected Russian requests for the extradition of the billionaire businessman, but Mr Chaika said that he expected a fresh application “in the near term” for Mr Berezovsky and for Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen separatist leader.

The two men were close friends with Litvinenko.

Last night British diplomats gave a restrained response to Russia’s ultimatum but ruled out any idea of “a swap”.

Last night Litvinenko’s father said his son would be buried on Friday in a sealed coffin in a Muslim ceremony in or near London. Valter Litvinenko said that the family is negotiating with police and the Health Protection Agency on the location.



Police in Naples last night seized documents and computers from the home of Mario Scaramella, the self-styled Italian defence consultant who was with Litvinenko when he was poisoned, after prosecutors accused him of “illegally dumping waste”.
Mr Scaramella claims he has evidence that leading Italian left-wing politicians are agents of Moscow. However he is increasingly seen as a figure of diminishing credibility. His claims to be an academic have so far failed to stand up, since none of the universities with which he says he is associated — from Naples to New York — have endorsed him.

Britain wants to interview

Andrei Lugovoy Former KGB officer. Worked for a TV station in Moscow run by Boris Berezovsky. Briefly jailed, on release set up business offering bodyguards for wealthy Russians.

Mikhail Trepashkin Former FSB officer. Investigated 1999 bombings of Moscow apartments, which President Putin blamed on Chechen separatists. Mr Trepashkin claimed FSB was behind the explosions.

Russia wants to extradite

Boris Berezovsky Russia’s first billionaire. Mr Berezovsky, 61, fell out with Mr Putin and sought asylum in Britain. Employed Litvinenko and other dissidents. Wanted by Kremlin for alleged corruption

Akhmed Zakayev Foreign Minister of the Chechen government in exile, he is accused by Russia of terrorist attacks. Mr Zakayev, 50, lived next door to Litvinenko and saw him hours before he fell ill

Source: Times database

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 24,00.html








ALSO IN THIS SECTION


Russia demands the handover of Putin's critics in exchange for poison case help

Musharraf raises hope of lasting peace with offer to give up claim on Kashmir

America is not winning the war in Iraq, says the man who will head Pentagon

Conflict and unease on way forward

Merkel gives Turkey time to reflect

[non-amnesia]

Radiation find in British embassy


Small traces of a radioactive substance have been found at the British embassy in Moscow following a precautionary check, the UK Foreign Office has said.
But officials said the levels of radiation found would not pose a risk to public health.

It comes as British police said they were treating the death of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko as murder.

More:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6215168.stm

[seemslikeadream]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6219124.stm
Litvinenko contact 'is in coma'

A Russian businessman who met the former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill has fallen into a coma, Russia's Interfax agency reports.
Dmitry Kovtun met Mr Litvinenko at the Pine Bar in London's Millennium Hotel on 1 November.

Mr Litvinenko was admitted to hospital on the same day and died from radiation poisoning three weeks later.

Another Russian who was at the same meeting, ex-spy Andrei Lugovoy, is also in hospital.