A TOP Moscow politician stunned the world yesterday by ADMITTING the KGB may have poisoned former spy Alexander Litvinenko. Viktor Ilyukhin — deputy chairman of the Russian parliament’s security committee — declared: “I can’t exclude that possibility.†He said of the dad of one, whose food is feared to have been spiked at a London sushi bar: “That former KGB officer had been irritating the Russian authorities for a long time and possibly knew some state secrets. “So when our special services got the chance to operate not only inside but outside the country, they decided to get rid of him.†Last night Litvinenko, 44, was continuing to fight for life at London’s University College Hospital — guarded by armed police. He was in intensive care, with medics putting his chances of survival at 50:50. Shocking pictures taken yesterday and released by his family showed the appalling effects of the highly-toxic chemical thallium. Litvinenko was pictured pale and weak in his hospital bed — his hair all gone. A toxicologist involved in the battle to save him said Litvinenko’s white cell count — a gauge of his immune system — was nearly zero. Dr John Henry added: “His bone marrow has been attacked.†Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky said last night after visiting Litvinenko for a second time: “He is really in very bad shape.†Countryman Ilyukhin said the former KGB colonel, who fled Moscow for Britain five years ago, may have been targeted for probing a Russian journalist’s murder. Anna Politkovskaya — a leading critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin — was gunned down at her Moscow flat. Ilyukhin said Litvinenko may have been set “to reveal the truth about Anna Politkovskaya’s assassinationâ€. Last night the Kremlin branded his comments “sheer nonsenseâ€. And one counter-intelligence agent insisted a “hit†by the KGB — now renamed the FSB — would have been more PROFESSIONAL. He told a Russian paper: “If it was necessary we would find a different, less fussy and public method to get rid of him.†Litvinenko was poisoned three weeks ago — but thallium takes around a fortnight to kick in. His would-be assassins are being hunted by Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command — SO15. Their probe is set to focus on two meetings Litvinenko had on November 1. The first was at a London hotel where he had tea with two Russian men — one a former KGB officer. Pal Alexander Goldfarb said thallium might have been sprinkled into Litvinenko’s drink there. The second meeting was at a sushi bar in Piccadilly with an Italian academic. Yesterday it emerged that Litvinenko made a secret tape revealing assassinations sanctioned by the Kremlin — in case he was murdered. It was being examined by MI5. http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006540128,00.html Something like this was waiting to happen after the murder of Anna Politkovskaya Whats going to happen next? Comments here thanks :-
I read something about this yesterday and it tied this with the poisening of the President of the Ukraine and one other guy...further tying it all to Putin. Now I don't know much about this/really nothing/but I wouldn't want to get on Putin's bad side. I grew up in a region heavily influenced by active members of the American Mafia. A big shot lived around the corner from me when I was a kid. The lesson we were tought. Keep your distance from these guys.
Sure earlpearl I have a similar background from my teenage years, you need to keep your distance I just saw Litvinenko on the TV they have 'seen' to him real good, will be surprised if he lives never mind recovers But for sure some news will follow, this story has legs
I believe they've poisoned him with Thallium, which was a favourite poison of the infamous Teacup Poisoner Graham Young in England. They made a film about him which was good, he was crazy, he poisoned his family, his best friend, his co-workers, anybody he could test his poisons on. Got life imprisonment in the end. I saw the Russian guy that was poisoned on MSN News yesterday, lost all of his hair, looks extremely ill. Awful.
Poisoned Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko suffered heart failure overnight and was on life support Thursday morning, a friend said after the hospital reported the patient's condition had deteriorated. "He went into a cardiac failure overnight and the hospital put him on artificial heart support," said Alex Goldfarb, a friend of the former KGB spy. "He's on the ventilator, he's getting artificial resuscitation," Goldfarb said. Litvinenko, a fierce critic of the Russian government, is suffering from the effects of an unknown poison he believes was given to him Nov. 1. His hair has fallen out, his throat is swollen and his immune and nervous systems have been damaged. A statement released by the University College Hospital said Litvinenko's condition had deteriorated overnight. It refused to comment on Goldfarb's statement, citing a policy of patient confidentiality. "He is now in a very serious condition and remains in intensive care," the hospital said. It did not give any details of his treatment or on the report of heart failure. Goldfarb, who had joined Litvinenko's wife Marina and the former agent's father by his bedside, said the 43-year-old's condition had been deteriorating over the last few days. "His heart has been generally weak of the past few weeks, he had low blood pressure yesterday, and his heart had stopped. He was in intensive care for that reason." The police's anti-terrorist branch was investigating the poisoning that friends and dissidents allege was carried out at the behest of the Russian government. Litvinenko sought asylum in Britain 2000, and has been a relentless critic of the Kremlin and the Russian security services. On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, issued its strongest denial yet that it was involved in any assassination attempt. "Litvinenko is not the kind of person for whose sake we would spoil bilateral relations," SVR spokesman Sergei Ivanov said, according to the Interfax news agency. "It is absolutely not in our interests to be engaged in such activity." The British Broadcasting Corp., quoting an unidentified hospital source, reported that X-rays had shown that Litvinenko had swallowed three objects of dense matter, which had lodged in his intestine. The BBC said it was unclear whether the objects were related to Litvinenko's illness, and the hospital declined to comment. Litvinenko worked both for the KGB and for a successor, the Federal Security Service. In 1998, he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky -- now exiled in Britain -- and a year later spent nine months in jail on charges of abuse of office, for which he was later acquitted, and which prompted his move to London. On the day he first felt ill, Litvinenko said he had two meetings. In the morning, he met with an unnamed Russian and Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB colleague and bodyguard to one-time Russian Prime Minster Yegor Gaidar at a London hotel. Later, he dined with Italian security expert Mario Scaramella to discuss the October murder of another Kremlin critic -- investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Scaramella told reporters in Rome on Tuesday that he had traveled to meet Litvinenko to discuss an e-mail he received from a source naming the killers of Politkovskaya, who was gunned down Oct. 7 at her Moscow apartment building, and outlining that he and Litvinenko were on a hit list. Goldfarb said Wednesday that there was nothing out of the ordinary in Litvinenko's meeting with Lugovoy, who also worked as bodyguard to Berezovsky, the most high profile Russian exile in London. Litvinenko has refused to implicate any of the people he met on Nov. 1 in his poisoning. "He said there were two encounters held but he is not accusing anybody. It could have happened then or it could have happened elsewhere," Goldfarb said. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/23/uk.spypoisoned.ap/index.html
Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital on Thursday three weeks after he was poisoned in what friends said was a plot orchestrated by the Kremlin. Russia has dismissed the allegation as nonsense, saying it was silly to suggest the Kremlin wanted to kill Litvinenko, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The 43-year-old former spy, who had been fighting for his life in intensive care, died at 9:21 p.m. British time, said Jim Down, a spokesman for University College Hospital. But doctors said they still did not know exactly what caused Litvinenko's death. "The medical team at the hospital did everything possible to save his life," said Down. British police said they were investigating what they called the "unexplained" death. If Moscow were found to have had a hand in his poisoning there could be far-reaching diplomatic consequences. It would be the first such incident known to have taken place in the West since the Cold War. "THE BASTARDS" "The bastards got me. But they won't get everybody," Litvinenko told friend and filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov before losing consciousness earlier this week. http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/art...SONING.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsLanding-C1-Headline-2
Nuclear fallout: Alexander Litvinenko died in agony. Who killed him, and why? The ex-KGB agent had many enemies, including his former spy colleagues and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Those are among the few known facts in an assassination which seems like a sinister replay of the Cold War. It was a slow, agonising death. Whatever had poiosoned Alexander Litvinenko destroyed his bone marrow and liver, and eventually triggered a massive heart attack. Not until shortly before the former Russian counter-intelligence official died last Thursday in a hospital in Britain, the country that had given him citizenship, did doctors finally discover why his life was ebbing away. He had been poisoned with polonium-210, a radioactive metal unknown to most medical experts. By the time his condition had been diagnosed, it was too late. Polonium-210 is so dangerous that it may be impossible to carry out a conventional post-mortem on Mr Litvinenko. It is even possible that his remains will have to be disposed of in a manner that prevents any risk. Since the death of the 43-year-old defector, radiation has been discovered at his London home, at a hotel in Grosvenor Square where he met two Russians, and at a sushi bar in Piccadilly, where he had lunch with an Italian academic who, it is claimed, declared that both of them were on a hit list. Those are almost the only undisputed facts in a sinister affair that has revived memories of the cold war and raised the spectre of terrorism. President Vladimir Putin of Russia and his Federal Security Service, the FSB - the successor to the KGB in which Mr Litvinenko was a lieutenant-colonel - have been implicated in the accusations being flung between London and Moscow. So have insurgents in the savage war in Chechnya, their sympathisers in Britain, and the circle of exiles around the fugitive Russian billionaire, Boris Berezovsky, who, like Mr Litvinenko, was given political asylum in this country. The poisoning on British soil of the former spy has not only set in motion an investigation on an unprecedented scale, it has aroused fears that the murky intersection of business and politics in Russia, which has seen a succession of unsolved murders, has been imported here. Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, along with forensic experts and nuclear scientists from Aldermaston Weapons Establishment, are working round the clock to establish exactly how and when Mr Litvinenko ingested the polonium. His death has also triggered a health scare. Officials yesterday urged anyone who came into contact with the defector, who was effectively radioactive, to call a special helpline number. Full text see this link http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2016152.ece I guess intrigue in the twilight world of Russian Politics will ensure this story will continue to unfold
Three people have been referred to a special clinic for radiological tests following the death of a former Russian spy in London, a spokeswoman for Britain's Health Protection Agency (HPA) said on Monday. Highly radioactive polonium-210 was found in the body of Alexander Litvinenko, who died last week, and traces of radiation were found at his home, a restaurant and hotel he had visited. Health officials have offered tests to members of the public who may have visited the locations. The spokeswoman told Reuters that of more than 450 people who called a government hotline for health advice, 18 had been passed on to the HPA for follow-up. "Of those 18, three have been referred as a precaution to a special clinic for radiological assessment," she said. An inquest into Litvinenko's death is expected to begin Thursday, says Camden Council, which oversees the North London Coroner's Court -- the body that orders such inquests. London's inner north district coroner Dr Andrew Reid is assessing when and if to conduct a post mortem examination on Litvineko's body. He has to take advice on whether it is safe to perform the procedure, given that the 43-year-old was poisoned with radiation, the UK's Press Association reported. On Sunday a UK Cabinet minister launched an outspoken attack on Russian president Vladimir Putin, blamed by Litvinenko for his poisoning. Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain criticized Putin's "huge attacks" on liberty and democracy. Litvinenko, a former KGB officer and vocal opponent of Putin, died on Thursday night after ingesting a large dose of radioactive polonium-210. A statement he composed before his death pinned the blame on the Russian leader, a claim denied by the Kremlin. Hain accused Putin of presiding over "huge attacks on individual liberty and on democracy." Hain said Putin's tenure had been "clouded" by incidents "including an extremely murky murder of a senior Russian journalist" -- Anna Politkovskaya. Opposition politicians, meanwhile, pressed for a British government statement on Litvinenko's poisoning death, which officials have called "unprecedented." "It is essential that other dissidents living in Britain are reassured about their safety and there are also questions about how polonium-210 came to be used in Britain," said David Davis, the Conservative law-and-order spokesman. London Metropolitan Police said Sunday they were investigating a "suspicious death," rather than a murder. They have not ruled out the possibility that Litvinenko may have poisoned himself. Litvinenko, 43, told police he believed he was poisoned November 1 while investigating the October slaying of Politkovskaya. He was moved to intensive care last week after his hair fell out, his throat became swollen and his immune and nervous systems suffered severe damage. Britain's Health Protection Agency called the poisoning by polonium-210 -- a rare radioactive element usually produced in a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator -- "an unprecedented event." http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/27/uk.spy/ This story will continue to escalate in the coming days and months
Litvinenko's wife is now under hospital checks as she has shown up in tests to have ingressed Polonium 210
Litvinenko may have fallen foul of ruthless Russian businessmen Alexander Litvinenko may have been killed after a deal that went wrong with associates involved in the ruthless world of Russian business. According to security sources, investigators are looking at the former spy’s dealings with Russian businessmen involved in the lucrative energy sector and the shadowy world of private security. “We are looking at a very long list of Mr Litvinenko’s friends and foes since he has been in London,†one source said. The list includes exotic figures ranging from billionaire businessmen, former Kremlin spies and KGB agents to underworld bosses. In the six years that he was in Britain, Litvinenko appeared to have acquired a formidable collection of friends and enemies. Although he described himself as a journalist, Litvinenko tried unsuccessfully to muscle in on several lucrative business deals with Russians. On the day that he fell ill he was attempting to broker a gas and oil exploration deal involving a British conglomerate that he claimed to represent. He was envious of the money that many of his former colleagues were making. He also had talks about providing trained personal protection guards recruited from Russia, and claimed to represent a number of British interests wanting bilateral deals with Russian investors. Police will look at investigations that his friends say he claimed to be involved in at the time of his death, including smuggling rings for nuclear material and prostitutes. People connected to this world are frequently murdered on the streets of Russia’s cities, but until now the practice has not spread to London’s large Russian expatriate community. The latest line of inquiry will confuse further an already complex investigation with a cast of characters that already includes President Putin, his nemesis Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch exiled in London, rogue FSB death squads and the Chechen mafia. Even now counter-terrorist detectives have pointedly not used the word “murderâ€, preferring “suspicious deathâ€. Much of the latest focus of attention has been on Andrei Lugovoy, a former Russian intelligence officer, who met Litvinenko on the day he was poisoned. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2482861,00.html The name of Andrei Lugovoy keeps being mentioned in many reports it seems he is likely to become one of the likely assassins
MARIO Scaramella, the man who met with poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill, has been arrested. Scaramella was met by officers from Italy’s DIGOS anti-terrorist unit as he stepped off a British Airways jet from Gatwick. It was in connection with the seizure of rocket-propelled grenades made by Italian police in the summer of 2005. A police spokesman at the airport said: “Professor Mario Scaramella was arrested when he arrived in Italy from Britain.†“He was arrested in connection with a warrant issued by magistrates investigating allegations of arms trafficking and revealing state secrets.†“He will be questioned here initially and then probably be transferred to a jail in Rome.†His lawyer Sergio Rastrelli was unavailable for comment. Scaramella had met with Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on November 1, the day the former KGB agent fell ill. Litvinenko died in a London hospital on November 23. It is thought he was poisoned with the radioactive substance polonium-210. http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006590591,00.html Will have to wait now and see what he is charged with
British police have identified the man they believe fatally poisoned a former Russian spy with radioactive polonium-210 in London last year, the Times reported Saturday. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2556377,00.html The suspected killer of Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian Federal Security Service, called himself "Vladislav" and arrived in London from Hamburg on Nov. 1, when Litvinenko fell sick, the British newspaper reported. The police believe the man mixed polonium-210 in some tea that he gave to Litvinenko. The man was filmed by security cameras when he arrived at Heathrow Airport. The police described the man as being in his early 30s, tall, with short black hair and distinctive Central Asian features.