Game-Changing New Clues in Litvinenko Murder from Sherlock Holmes

[Paul Rigby]

Game-Changing New Clues in Litvinenko Murder from Sherlock Holmes

Published on Nov 13, 2015

Video courtesy of Russian Hour: The Case of Alexander Litvinenko
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[video=youtube_share;2Xq3LXKnatw]http://youtu.be/2Xq3LXKnatw[/video]

BOMBSHELL VIDEO: Vital Litvinenko Murder Clues Unearthed by Amateur Sherlock Fans

http://russia-insider.com/en/game-over-n...eo/ri11173

Citizen sleuths are on the case, and they demonstrate pretty convincingly what we've said all along. Russia is innocent, and anyone who tells you otherwise has no idea what they are talking about
Masha Gessen makes a cameo appearance - and she get's caught flat-out lying

It's just a big russophobia fest kicked up by Russia-hating western media and British politicians who follow their bidding - yes, that is you we are talking about David Cameron, you pathetic sell-out

By Benedict Cumberbatchsky

Everyone loves a good murder mystery, almost as much as a good spy story!

And everyone hates lying bastards, especially in the person of the Crown prosecution, venal neocon press lords, and cynical politicians.

Investigative citizen journalists with a sense of humor ride to the rescue!

RI has written a lot about Litvinenko, pointing out that from the beginning, the whole thing was a massive stunt to smear Putin and Russia, and that there is simply no validity to the preposterous accusations being made in the media. RI's very own William Dunkerly is an expert on the case and has written a book about it. Here are some of our headlines:

David Cameron's Litvinenko Hearings are a Silly Political Sham - by William Dunkerly

UK Litvinenko Inquiry Is Less Transparent and Less Fair than Russia's Magnitsky Trial - by Alexander Mercouris

Litvinenko Wasn't Poisoned by Putin. He Was Likely Smuggling the Polonium That Killed Him - by Ryan Dawson

This past summer, a group of Russian and UK journalists, actors, and Sherlock enthusiasts, finally decided they had had enough of the transparent lying around the Litvinenko case - particularly on the part of the Crown prosecution, and the British media which seem to work in perfect symphony, blasting one ridiculous headline after another about how Putin murdered this chap with polonium.

The latest volley occurred a month ago - it is the smear that keeps on giving whenever MI6 the obsequious UK media it controls want to whip up some anti-Russia hysteria.

At the initiative of the Russian Hour television channel, they put together a humorous 22 minute mini-documentary pointing out some of the most glaring inconsistencies in the Crown's case.

Russian Hour approached Russia Insider, offering us the film, and we jumped at the opportunity - this is what RI is all about! : citizen journalism revealing the lies in the corporate media, so we proudly present it to you here, today, as an exclusive RI scoop.

The film is a tongue-in-cheek little gem - gently pointing out some of the nonsense around the case.

Some of our western viewers might miss an interesting facet of the film - the narrator is none other than Vasily Livanov, a true phenomenon in the Sherlock world. Livanov played Sherlock Holmes in a Soviet series which was wildly popular almost everywhere in the world except the US and Europe, made during the late 70s and early 80s.

Peculiarly, many Sherlock connoisseurs, even in Europe, think he was the best Sherlock ever, the Sean Connery of the Sherlock world. The series has a cult following in the US and UK among the Sherlock faithful. Click here for a UK teaser. It is Livanov who most Indians, Chinese, Middle Easterners, Africans, South Americans, and former Soviet peoples instantly think of when they think of Sherlock Holmes. In recognition of this, in 2006 the Queen awarded Livanov the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for service to the theatre and performing arts," a rare honor for a non-British citizen.

Thanks to Livanov, Russians are Sherlock crazy. The books are required reading for every Russian child and the country is hooked on the new Sherlock series starring my British namesake.

But back to case at at hand…

The film reveals a major new relevation, and completely destroys one of the most repeated lies about the Litvinenko case.

First the lie: The Russians must have done it because poloniun only comes from Russia. The film humorously despatches this one by citing the appalling Masha Gessen who blathers on about this in her weirdly hateful hatchet job on Pushkin, a much beloved tome on every neocon, Russia-hating bookshelf. Fired from every job she ever held, how Gessen manages to carry on as a serious journalist is a mystery - well actually its not a mystery at all, - she keeps getting paid to spit venom by neocon media types - its as simple as that. Furthermore, this is what we mean when the western media is consciously lying. This was not a mistake by Gessen. This was a deliberate lie.

The film simply interviews a world-famous physicist, William Happer, of Princeton University (Wikipedia), who explains that what Gessen writes, and is repeated ad nauseum in the media, is complete nonsense. Funny to watch. The interviewer struggles to keep straight face.

Next the revelation: The sleuths sleuthed around a seedy London nightclub where Litvinenko enjoyed whiling away early morning hours with ladies of ill repute and assorted ne'er do wells, and interviews the Dickensian owner of the club, who explains that Litvinenko was there a full week before the supposed poisoning, but not after, and that polonium traces were found all over the club. A bombshell new revelation, overturning the Crown's case! Elementary my dear Watson!

What is not in the film is that, mysteriously, the club owner suddenly died of a massive heart attack weeks after the interview! Smells like foul play to us, - who could have wanted him out of the way? There's more work to be done by our fearless team of citizen sleuthers.

[David Guyatt]

Yep, Litvenko was smuggling Polonium. He was also employed by Boris Berezovsy and both MI6 and Mi5. There is an extensive and highly detailed article about him, but I can't find it just now.

[Peter Lemkin]

Interesting!...and while lending good evidence to who might NOT have done the poisoning, doesn't go into who might have. The role and relationship of British Intelligence in all of this and with Litvinenko seems to me to be a large part of the missing puzzle pieces.

Speaking of Polonium poisoning [and off topic] what ever happened to the final analyses on Arafat's death? As I remember there were contradictory reports from different sources using the same facts.

News to me is that Po is used in the manufacture of fabrics! I know they are used in smoke detectors and other such devices. Wiki [as usual] has it all wrong, not stating it is used worldwide for smoke detectors and a host of other industrial processes, and saying it is only produced in Russia....absolutely false!

Aha, found it...

Po-210 is used in some industrial applications such as static eliminators, which are devices designed to eliminate static electricity in processes such as rolling paper, manufacturing sheet plastics, and spinning synthetic fibers. It is also used in nuclear weapons production, as a power supply in small satellites, and in the oil industry.

[David Guyatt]

Interesting!...and while lending good evidence to who might NOT have done the poisoning, doesn't go into who might have. The role and relationship of British Intelligence in all of this and with Litvinenko seems to me to be a large part of the missing puzzle pieces.

Speaking of Polonium poisoning [and off topic] what ever happened to the final analyses on Arafat's death? As I remember there were contradictory reports from different sources using the same facts.

News to me is that Po is used in the manufacture of fabrics! I know they are used in smoke detectors and other such devices. Wiki [as usual] has it all wrong, not stating it is used worldwide for smoke detectors and a host of other industrial processes, and saying it is only produced in Russia....absolutely false!

Aha, found it...

Po-210 is used in some industrial applications such as static eliminators, which are devices designed to eliminate static electricity in processes such as rolling paper, manufacturing sheet plastics, and spinning synthetic fibers. It is also used in nuclear weapons production, as a power supply in small satellites, and in the oil industry.

The theory is that he accidentally was exposed to Polonium during his smuggling activities.

[Peter Lemkin]

Interesting!...and while lending good evidence to who might NOT have done the poisoning, doesn't go into who might have. The role and relationship of British Intelligence in all of this and with Litvinenko seems to me to be a large part of the missing puzzle pieces.

Speaking of Polonium poisoning [and off topic] what ever happened to the final analyses on Arafat's death? As I remember there were contradictory reports from different sources using the same facts.

News to me is that Po is used in the manufacture of fabrics! I know they are used in smoke detectors and other such devices. Wiki [as usual] has it all wrong, not stating it is used worldwide for smoke detectors and a host of other industrial processes, and saying it is only produced in Russia....absolutely false!

Aha, found it...

Po-210 is used in some industrial applications such as static eliminators, which are devices designed to eliminate static electricity in processes such as rolling paper, manufacturing sheet plastics, and spinning synthetic fibers. It is also used in nuclear weapons production, as a power supply in small satellites, and in the oil industry.

The theory is that he accidentally was exposed to Polonium during his smuggling activities.

Well, possible, but two thoughts come to mind. Radioactives are usually sealed in very secure containers within other containers and unless someone opens the various layers it is very difficult to be contaminated by mistake. Of course, poor practice in handling it or purposeful contamination when it was given to him could account for an earlier exposure. It does take quiet a bit of time before any symptoms occur, and then they start out very vague and flu-like...moving on to anemia-like and then cancer-like...then to multiple organ failure.

Second, why would one smuggle Po, if one can buy it in most countries - though one can imagine a reason why [had a secure/secret source in one place and thus no risk of exposure for obtaining it]. Seems there is still a piece or two of the puzzle missing...not to mention WHY he was in need of large amounts of Po-210....one assumes if he needed it it was for a silent murder...and not any of the industrial uses.

[Peter Lemkin]

The recent [yesterday] release of this 'inquiry' held in the UK strikes me as the usual intelligence-controlled non-investigation. There is zero mention of Litvinenko working with if not for MI5/6, and all blame is put on the KGB/FSU/Putin along the lines of blame for just about everything lately. The inquiry is full of 'might have' 'could have' statements and little proof. Another in a long line of 'inquiries' in the UK that start with the conclusion wanted for political reasons and then pads it with wording that fits that scenario, minus a real and unbiased fact-based investigation.....Princess Diana, 7/7; Dr. Kelly....many, many others one can name...now Litvinenko. While I do not dismiss out of hand that the FSU could have wanted him dead for leaving and joining MI5/6 [apparently], the fact that MI5/6 also kills is not mentioned anywhere on the MSM, nor is Litvinenko's links to UK intelligence during his stay in the UK. Another whitewash non-investigation the UK is so very good at.....sadly, the media around the world report it without much question. I've heard a few broadcasters allow for denials from the suspects named in Russia respond, but no real look at the bias of the inquiry nor evidence that things might be a bit more complicated and involve Western Intelligence too.

[David Guyatt]

The recent [yesterday] release of this 'inquiry' held in the UK strikes me as the usual intelligence-controlled non-investigation. There is zero mention of Litvinenko working with if not for MI5/6, and all blame is put on the KGB/FSU/Putin along the lines of blame for just about everything lately. The inquiry is full of 'might have' 'could have' statements and little proof. Another in a long line of 'inquiries' in the UK that start with the conclusion wanted for political reasons and then pads it with wording that fits that scenario, minus a real and unbiased fact-based investigation.....Princess Diana, 7/7; Dr. Kelly....many, many others one can name...now Litvinenko. While I do not dismiss out of hand that the FSU could have wanted him dead for leaving and joining MI5/6 [apparently], the fact that MI5/6 also kills is not mentioned anywhere on the MSM, nor is Litvinenko's links to UK intelligence during his stay in the UK. Another whitewash non-investigation the UK is so very good at.....sadly, the media around the world report it without much question. I've heard a few broadcasters allow for denials from the suspects named in Russia respond, but no real look at the bias of the inquiry nor evidence that things might be a bit more complicated and involve Western Intelligence too.

It was the typical British judge led inquiry where the outcome was determined at the beginning. It smells to high heaven.

The best independent investigation - by a very long way - into the Litvinenko death was caried out by American investigative journalists, Edward Jay Epstein who shows that Litvinenko was contaminated by Polonium at least two days before he met the two Russian accused of his murder. Traces of Polonium were found in the Hey Joe club in London's Mayfair where Litvinenko was ensconced two nights earlier. And also at the Itsu restaurant where he met Masrio Scaramella before then going to meet Lugovoi.

The below article from the New York Sun:

The Specter That Haunts the Death of Litvinenko

[B]By EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN, Special to the Sun | March 19, 2008
[/B]



On December 1, 2006, one of the eeriest autopsies in the annals of crime was conducted at the Royal London Hospital. Three British pathologists, covered from head to toe in white protective suits, stood around a radioactive corpse that had been sealed in plastic for nearly a week. The victim was Alexander Litvinenko, a 44-year-old ex-KGB officer who had defected from Russia to England in November 2000 and had drawn on his experience to denounce the government of the newly installed President Putin. What the pathologists found is still a state secret.
Click Image to Enlarge

Natasja Weitsz / Getty

Alexander Litvinenko in the intensive care unit of University College London Hospital on November 20, 2006, three days
before his death from radiation poisoning.



The mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Litvinenko, apparently from radiation poisoning, spawned an international crisis. Britain demanded that Russia extradite a Russian citizen allegedly connected to the case. When it refused, Britain expelled four Russian diplomats from London, in reprisals reminiscent of the Cold War.
The British authorities had told the press, "We are 100 percent sure who administered the poison, where and how," but they refused to disclose their evidence. Nonetheless, the consensus that the Russian secret service was behind the poisoning was so powerful that a Washington Post editorial could assert that the poison "dose was almost certainly carried by one or both of the former Russian security operatives one of them also a KGB alumnus whom Mr. Litvinenko met at a London hotel Nov. 1."
To find out what evidence the British had actually provided to the Russians to back up their extradition request, I went to Moscow to meet with the Russian prosecutors in charge of the case. My investigation made it clear that far more was involved than the killing of an innocent dissident.
The Berezovsky Connection
Before Vladimir Putin took over the Kremlin in 2000, Russia's most powerful oligarch had probably been Boris Berezovsky. He controlled the country's largest television channel and a large part of the private economy, and served as deputy secretary of Russia's National Security Council. He also had his own protector in Litvinenko, the deputy head of the organized crime unit of the KGB's successor, the Federal Security Service, or FSB. But even Litvinenko could not help Mr. Berezovsky when Mr. Putin turned on him and had him investigated for massive fraud. In late 1999, Mr. Berezovsky fled to Britain, followed by Litvinenko a year later.
In London, Mr. Berezovsky had an extraordinary agenda, which he himself described as overthrowing the regime of his archenemy, Mr. Putin. Litvinenko, whom Mr. Berezovsky now supported through his foundation, took a key role in this ambitious enterprise. He wrote books accusing Mr. Putin's FSB of everything from collaborating with the leadership of al-Qaeda to framing Chechen rebels for bloody acts of terrorism that FSB agents themselves committed, such as the bombing of six apartment houses in which over 300 people died. In addition, Litvinenko also had less visible employment as a consult for two closely connected security companies housed in Berezovsky's office building at 25 Grosvenor Square.
The Slow Death
Litvinenko's day of reckoning came on November 1, 2006. First he had lunch at Itsu, a trendy sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, with an Italian associate, Mario Scaramella. Mr. Scaramella, who had flown in from Naples the night before, had been involved with Litvinenko in, among other things, a Byzantine plot to penetrate the operations of a suspected trafficker in prostitutes, arms, and enriched uranium. At that lunch, Mr. Scaramella gave Litvinenko some documents.
Litvinenko then proceeded to the Millennium Hotel, where he had an appointment to see Andrei Lugovoi, who had also served in the FSB up until 1999 and who now owned a private security firm in Moscow. He had been meeting with Mr. Lugovoi on his trips to London for several months, and two weeks earlier had brought him to Erinys International, one of the security companies in Mr. Berezovsky's building, to discuss a business proposal. According to Mr. Lugovoi, Litvinenko now wanted to discuss the progress of that venture, and so met him and his business associate Dmitry Kovtun in the crowded Pine Bar for tea. After leaving the Pine Bar, Litvinenko went to Mr. Berezovsky's office. When he returned home, according to his wife Marina, he felt ill. Two days later, he was admitted to Barnet General Hospital.
During his stay at the hospital, Litvinenko's condition continually worsened. The initial diagnosis was that he had been poisoned by Thallium, a non-radioactive toxin used in Russian rat poison. Since the KGB had reportedly used Thallium as a poison in the Cold War era, the theory gained traction in the press that Litvinenko might have been the victim of the FSB. As Litvinenko had been denouncing the FSB for six years, it seemed at least plausible that the FSB had sought revenge on him.
The main, if not only, source for the revenge-murder scenario were people funded by Mr. Berezovsky. A Web site in France, which had received financing from Mr. Berezovsky's foundation, circulated a report that there was a Russian "hit list" that had Litvinenko's name on it. Even though the "hit list" itself never materialized, it helped link the death of Litvinenko in the public mind with that of Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading journalist who had been murdered a month earlier, in October 2006, and whose name was also on the putative hit list. Meanwhile, a Chechen website, also supported by Mr. Berezovsky's foundation, ran stories such as "FSB Attempted to Murder Russian Defector in London."
At the hospital, Mr. Berezovsky's PR consultant, Lord Tim Bell, began briefing journalists, arranging interviews, and supplying photographs of an emaciated, hairless Litvinenko. Meanwhile, Litvinenko was moved to University College Hospital and given massive doses of the cyanide-based antidote for Thallium, which did not work. As Litvinenko's condition grew critical, Alex Goldfarb, the executive director of Mr. Berezovsky's foundation, prepared for Litvinenko's end by writing out his "deathbed" statement, which, according to Mr. Goldfarb, was drawn from statements Litvinenko had dictated to him.
A few hours after Litvinenko died on November 23, 2006, Mr. Goldfarb arranged a press conference and released the sensational deathbed statement accusing Mr. Putin of the poisoning. Giving further weight to this theory, British authorities switched the alleged crime scene from the Itsu restaurant, where Litvinenko had met the Italian Mr. Scaramella, to the Pine Bar, where he had met the Russian Mr. Lugovoi.
Just two hours before Litvinenko died, an unscripted surprise developed in the story: The hospital discovered that he had not been poisoned with Thallium. Instead, lab tests showed that he had in his body one of the world's rarest and most tightly controlled radioactive isotopes, Polonium-210.
The Polonium Warning
Polonium-210 is of great interest to the UN's nuclear proliferation watchdogs because it is a critical component in early-stage nuclear bombs. Both America and Russia used it as part of the trigger in their early bombs. So did most, if not all, countries with clandestine nuclear programs, including Israel, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and North Korea. To be sure, some of these nuclear powers shifted to more sophisticated triggers after they tested their weapons. Even so, as a declassified Los Alamos document notes, the detection of Polonium-210 remains "a key indication of a nuclear weapons program in its early stages." So when Polonium-210 was detected in Iraq in 1991, Iran in 2004, and North Korea in October 2006, the concern was that these countries might be trying to build a nuclear weapon.
When Polonium-210 was discovered in London in late November 2006 in Litvinenko's body, however, no such proliferation alarm bells went off. Instead, the police assumed that this component of early-stage nuclear bombs had been smuggled into London solely to commit a murder. It would be as if a suitcase nuclear bomb had been found next to an irradiated corpse in London, and everyone assumed the bomb had been smuggled into the country solely to murder that person. Michael Specter, in the New Yorker, for example, called it the "first known case of nuclear terrorism perpetrated against an individual." But why would anyone use a nuclear weapon to kill an individual, when a knife, bullet, or conventional poison would do the trick more quickly, efficiently, and certainly?
Certainly Polonium-210 is lethal once it gets into the blood stream. Before Litvinenko's death, six people died of exposure to Polonium-210 two in a radiation lab in France, three in a nuclear facility in Israel, and one in a nuclear research lab in Russia. All resulted from accidental leakage of Polonium-210. Because it is unstable, turning into a gas at 55 degrees Celsius, it is extremely difficult to handle. It is also expensive.
The Mythic Smoking Gun
A scientist by training, Mr. Goldfarb authoritatively asserted in his book "Death of a Dissident," written with Marina Litvinenko, that "97% of the known production of Polonium ... takes place in Russia." Since little else had been written about this rare isotope, many commentators assumed it was an established fact. An article in the New Yorker noted, "Nearly all of it [Polonium-210] is produced in Russia." To make such a determination, it is necessary to know both how much Polonium-210 is produced in Russia and how much is produced in other countries. Yet, as Polonium-210 production is a closely guarded secret, neither quantity is known. In 2006, neither Russia nor any other country in the world admitted manufacturing any Polonium-210 at all. Russia's nuclear authority claims that the sole reactor that had been manufacturing its Polonium-210 had been shut down in 2004, and the small quantity exported to America in 2005 and 2006 approximately 3 ounces each year came out of its stockpile.
No doubt Russia could secretly manufacture Polonium-210, a process that first requires radiating the metal Bismuth in a nuclear reactor and then extracting from it the Polonium-210. But so could America, Britain, China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Taiwan, North Korea, or any other country whose nuclear reactors have not been inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's watchdog for Polonium production. When I asked an IAEA scientist about who had produced any Polonium-210 in 2006, he said, "We simply don't know." He added that North Korea might have produced large quantities, "kilograms not grams," at its Yongbyon reactor for its nuclear tests in October 2006, but the actual amount is uncertain.
The Polonium-210 found in London could also have come from stockpiles in many countries, including America. According to the IAEA's Illicit Trafficking Data Base, there had been 14 incidents of missing industrial Polonium-210 since 2004. The minute amount found in London possibly no more than one-millionth of an ounce could have come from many sources, ranging from the American industrial supply and stockpiles in Russia to the remnants of the A.Q. Khan network in Pakistan and the North Korean surplus. So news reports, such as the one in the Washington Post that "Polonium is produced and held almost exclusively in Russia," are at best speculation.
The British Gambit
The British prosecutors aided the flight from reality by filing an extradition request in July 2007. Not only was there no extradition treaty between Britain and Russia, but Article 61 of the Russian Constitution prohibited the extradition from Russia of any of its citizens. Further inflaming matters, Sir Tony Brenton, the British Ambassador to Moscow, suggested that the Putin government should disregard the Russian constitution and "work with us creatively to find a way around this impediment," since British authorities had "cooperated closely and at length with the Russian Prosecutor General's Office." After Russia rejected the extradition request, Ambassador Brenton objected that its decision was not made "on the basis of the evidence," which implied that Britain had furnished Russia with compelling evidence to back up its request. Then Britain expelled four members of the Russian embassy in London, effectively holding the Russian government responsible for Litvinenko's death, and began an international imbroglio.
The suspect named in the extradition request is Andrei Lugovoi, who, according to the British, poisoned Litvinenko's tea in the Pine Bar when they met on November 1, 2006. Mr. Lugovoi admitted to meeting with Litvinenko to discuss a business venture with him, but denied having anything to do with his death. Mr. Lugovoi also had been contaminated by Polonium-210, but so was almost everyone else who had come in contact with Litvinenko around that time. Since Ambassador Brenton had suggested that the incriminating parts of the case had been given to the Russian authorities to back up the extradition request, I went to Moscow to find out about more about that evidence.
The Moscow Inquiry
The Kremlin is not known to be forthcoming with secret documents, but, in this instance, I was asking to see British, not Russian secrets. Even so, obtaining access to them was not easy. By the time I arrived in Moscow in late November 2007, the Russian Prosecutor General had consigned this (as well as other high-profile investigations) to a new unit called the National Investigative Committee. It was headed by Alexander Bastrykin, a former law professor and a deputy attorney general from St. Petersburg, who was just assembling his staff in a non-descript but well-guarded building across the street from Moscow's elite Higher Technical University in the district of Lefortovo.
Before I could meet officials in a conference room there to review the British file, my resourceful research associate in Moscow had spent many weeks sending the necessary documents to Mr. Bastrykin and his staff. There were other bureaucratic requisites, such as my agreeing to indemnify the Russian government for any costs that resulted from disclosing the British evidence, submitting my proposed questions, and agreeing not to identify by name any of the officials working for the Committee and refer to them collectively as the "Russian investigators." Then I was told, "The media often reproach the Russian side for its unwillingness to cooperate with the British side, when in reality the situation is reverse." As if to demonstrate this point, the Russian investigators provided me with access to the British files.
What immediately caught my attention was that it did not include the basic documents in any murder case, such as the postmortem autopsy report, which would help establish how and why Litvinenko died. In lieu of it, Detective Inspector Robert Lock of the Metropolitan Police Service at the New Scotland Yard wrote that he was "familiar with the autopsy results" and that Litvinenko had died of "Acute Radiation Syndrome."
Like Sherlock Holmes's clue of the dog that didn't bark, this omission was illuminating in itself. After all, Britain and Russia had embarked on a joint investigation of the Litvinenko case, which, as far the Russians were concerned, involved the Polonium-210 contamination of the Russian citizens who had contact with Litvinenko. They needed to determine when, how, and under what circumstances Litvinenko had been exposed to the radioactive nuclear component. The "when" question required access to the toxicology analysis, which usually is part of the autopsy report. There had already been a leak to a British newspaper that toxicologists had found two separate "spikes" of Polonium-210 in Litvinenko's body, which would indicate that he had been exposed at two different times to Polonium-210. Such a multiple exposure could mean that Litvinenko was in contact with the Polonium-210 days, or even weeks, before he fatally ingested it. To answer the "how" question, they wanted to see the postmortem slides of Litvinenko's lungs, digestive track, and body, which also are part of the autopsy report. These photos could show if Litvinenko had inhaled, swallowed, or gotten the Polonium-210 into the blood stream through an open cut.
The Russian investigators also wanted to know why Litvinenko was not given the correct antidote in the hospital and why the radiation had not been correctly diagnosed for more than three weeks. They said that their repeated requests to speak to the doctors and see their notes were "denied" and that none of the material they received in the "joint investigation" even "touched upon the issue of the change in Litvinenko's diagnosis from Thallium poisoning to Polonium poisoning." They added, "We have no trustworthy data on the cause of death of Litvinenko since the British authorities have refused to provide the necessary documents."
The only document provided in the British file indicating that a crime had been committed is an affidavit by Rosemary Fernandez, a Crown Prosecutor, stating that the extradition request is "in accordance with the criminal law of England and Wales, as well as with the European Convention on Extradition 1957."
The Radiation Trail
The British police summarized their case against Mr. Lugovoi in a report that accompanied the extradition papers. But instead of citing any conventional evidence, such as eyewitness accounts, surveillance videos of the Pine Bar, fingerprints on a poison container (or even the existence of a container), or Mr. Lugovoi's possible motive, the report was almost entirely based on a "trail" of Polonium-210 radiation that had been detected many weeks after they had been in contact with the Polonium-210.
From the list of the sites supplied to the Russian investigators, it is clear that a number of them coincide with Mr. Lugovoi's movements in October and November 2006, but the direction is less certain. When Mr. Lugovoi flew from Moscow to London on October 15 on Transaero Airlines, no radiation traces were found on his plane. It was only after he had met with Litvinenko at Erinys International on October 16 that traces were found on the British Airways planes on which he later flew, suggesting to the Russian investigators that the trail began in London and then went to Moscow. They also found that in London the trail was inexplicably erratic, with traces that were found, as they noted, "in a place where a person stayed for a few minutes, but were absent in the place where he was staying for several hours, although these events follow one after another."
When the Russian investigators asked the British for a comprehensive list of all the sites tested, the British refused, saying it was not "in the interest of their investigation." This refusal led the Russian investigators to suspect that the British might be truncating the trail to "fit their case."
Despite its erratic nature, the radioactive trail clearly involved the Millennium Hotel. Traces were found both in rooms in which Mr. Lugovoi and his family stayed between October 31 and November 2, and the hotel's Pine Bar, where Litvinenko met Messrs. Lugovoi and Kovtun in the early evening of November 1. If Litvinenko's tea was indeed poisoned at that Pine Bar meeting, as the British contended, Mr. Lugovoi could be placed at the crime scene. But other than the radiation, the report cited no witnesses, video surveillance tapes, or other evidence that showed that the poisoning had occurred at the Pine Bar. It could just as well have occurred early in the day at other sites that also tested positive for radiation.
Litvinenko, who was probably the best witness to that day's events, initially said he believed that he had been poisoned at his lunch with Mr. Scaramella at the Itsu restaurant. Even one week after he had been in the hospital, he gave a bedside BBC radio interview in which he still pointed to that meeting, saying Mr. Scaramella "gave me some papers.... after several hours I felt sick with symptoms of poisoning." At no time did he even mention his later meeting at the Pine Bar with Mr. Lugovoi.
Not only did the Itsu have traces of Polonium-210, but Mr. Scaramella was contaminated. Since Mr. Scaramella had just arrived from Italy and had not met with either Mr. Lugovoi or Mr. Kovtun, Litvinenko was the only one among those people known to be exposed to Polonium-210 who could have contaminated him. Which means that Litvinenko had been tainted by the Polonium-210 before he met Mr. Lugovoi as the Pine Bar. Litvinenko certainly could have been contaminated well before his meeting with Mr. Scaramella. Several nights earlier, he had gone to the Hey Joey club in Mayfair. According to its manager, Litvinenko was seated in the VIP lap-dancing cubicle that later tested positive for Polonium-210.
The most impressive piece of evidence involves the relatively high level of Polonium-210 in Mr. Lugovoi's room at the Millennium Hotel. Although the police report does not divulge the actual level itself (or any other radiation levels), Detective Inspector Lock states that an expert witness called "Scientist A" found that these hotel traces "were at such a high level as to establish a link with the original Polonium source material." Since no container for the Polonium-210 was ever found, "Scientist A" presumably is basing his opinion on a comparison of the radiation level in Mr. Lugovoi's room and other sites, such as Litvinenko's home or airplane seats. Such evidence would only be meaningful if the different sites had been pristine when the measurements were taken. However, all the sites, including the Millennium hotel rooms, had been compromised by weeks of usage and cleaning. So the differences in the radiation levels could have resulted from extraneous factors, such as vacuuming, or heating conditions.
The Russian investigators also found these levels had little evidentiary value because the British had provided "no reliable information regarding who else visited the hotel room in the interval between when Lugovoi departed and when the traces of polonium 210 were discovered." As a result of this nearly month-long gap, they could not "rule out the possibility that the discovered traces could have originated through cross-contamination by outside parties."
Hospital tests confirmed that Messrs. Lugovoi, Kovtun, and Scaramella and Litvinenko's widow, Marina, all had some contact with Polonium-210. But it is less clear who contaminated whom. The Russian investigators concluded that the all the radiation traces provided in the British report, including the "high level" cited by "Scientist A," could have emanated from a single event, such as a leak by design or accident at the October 16 meeting at the security company in Berezovsky's building. But they could not find "a single piece of evidence which would confirm the charge brought against A.K. Lugovoi."
Britain may have had more incriminating evidence against Mr. Lugovoi than it chose to provide to Russia. It may not have wanted to share data that would reveal intelligence sources. But why would it refuse to share such basic evidence as the autopsy report, the medical findings, and radiation data? And if Britain wanted to extradite Mr. Lugovoi, why would it send such embarrassingly thin substantiation? Mr. Putin blamed British incompetence, saying, "If the people who have sent us this request did not know that the Russian Constitution prohibits extradition of Russian citizens to foreign countries, then, of course, this would make their level of competence questionable." But here he may have underestimated the British purpose in staging this gambit.
The End Game
Before the extradition dispute, Russian investigators, in theory, could have questioned relevant witnesses in London. Their proposed roster of witnesses suggested that Russian interest extended to the Russian expatriate community in Britain, or "Londongrad," as it is now called. The Litvinenko case provided the Russians with the opportunity for a fishing expedition, since Litvinenko had at the time of his death worked with many of Russia's enemies, including Mr. Berezovsky; his foundation head, Mr. Goldfarb, who dispensed money to a web of anti-Putin websites; his Chechen ally Akhmed Zakayev, who headed a commission investigating Russian war crimes in Chechnya (for which Litvinenko acted as an investigator), and former owners of the expropriated oil giant Yukos, who were battling in the courts to regain control of billions of dollars in its off-shore bank accounts.
The Russian investigation could also have veered into Litvinenko's activities in the shadowy world of security consultants, including his dealings with the two security companies in Mr. Berezovsky's building, Erinys International and Titon International, and his involvement with Mr. Scaramella in an attempt to plant incriminating evidence on a suspected nuclear-component smuggler a plot for which Mr. Scaramella was jailed after his phone conversations with Litvinenko were intercepted by the Italian national police.
The Russians had asked for more information about radiation traces at the offices of these companies, and Mr. Lugovoi had said that at one of these companies, Erinys, he had been offered large sums of money to provide compromising information about Russian officials. Mr. Kovtun, who also attended that meeting, backs up Mr. Lugovoi's story. Such charges had the potential for embarrassing not only the security companies that had employed Litvinenko and employed former Scotland Yard and British intelligence officers, but the British government, since it had provided Litvinenko with a passport under the alias "Edwin Redwald Carter" to travel to parts of the former Soviet Union.
The British extradition gambit ended the Russian investigation in Londongrad. It also discredited Mr. Lugovoi's account by naming him as a murder suspect. In terms of a public relations tactic, it resulted in a brilliant success by putting the blame on Russian stonewalling for the failure to solve the mystery. What it obscured is the elephant-in-the-room that haunts the case: the fact that a crucial component for building an early-stage nuke was smuggled into London in 2006. Was it brought in merely as a murder weapon or as part of a transaction on the international arms market?
There is little, if any, possibility, that this question will be answered in the present stalemate. The Russian prosecutor-general has declared that the British case is baseless; Mr. Lugovoi, elected to the Russian Parliament in December 2007, now has immunity from prosecution, and Mr. Scaramella, under house arrest in Naples, has been silenced. The press, for its part, remains largely fixated on a revenge murder theory that corresponds more closely to the SMERSH villain in James Bond movies than to the reality of the case of the smuggled Polonium-210.
After considering all the evidence, my hypothesis is that Litvinenko came in contact with a Polonium-210 smuggling operation and was, either wittingly or unwittingly, exposed to it. Litvinenko had been a person of interest to the intelligence services of many countries, including Britain's MI-6, Russia's FSB, America's CIA (which rejected his offer to defect in 2000), and Italy's SISMI, which was monitoring his phone conversations.
His murky operations, whatever their purpose, involved his seeking contacts in one of the most lawless areas in the former Soviet Union, the Pankisi Gorge, which had become a center for arms smuggling. He had also dealt with people accused of everything from money laundering to trafficking in nuclear components. These activities may have brought him, or his associates, in contact with a sample of Polonium-210, which then, either by accident or by design, contaminated and killed him.
To unlock the mystery, Britain must make available its secret evidence, including the autopsy report, the comprehensive list of places in which radiation was detected, and the surveillance reports of Litvinenko and his associates. If Britain considers it too sensitive for public release, it should be turned over to an international commission of inquiry. The stakes are too high here to leave unresolved the mystery of the smuggled Polonium-210.

[Magda Hassan]

Brother isn't buying it. Nor father.

Britain had more motivation to kill Aleksandr Litvinenko than Russia, brother claims

Published time: 22 Jan, 2016 12:22Edited time: 22 Jan, 2016 15:35
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The grave of murdered ex-KGB agent Aleksandr Litvinenko is seen at Highgate Cemetery in London, Britain, January 21, 2016. © Toby Melville / Reuters


The brother of Aleksandr Litvinenko says the UK government had more motivation to kill him than Russia did, despite a British public inquiry which concluded that President Putin "probably" approved the assassination.
Maksim Litvinenko, Aleksandr's younger brother who lives in Rimini, Italy, responded to the Thursday report by saying it was "ridiculous" to blame the Kremlin for the murder of his brother, stating that he believes British security services had more of a motive to carry out the assassination.
"My father and I are sure that the Russian authorities are not involved. It's all a set-up to put pressure on the Russian government," Litvinenko told the Mirror, adding that such reasoning is the only explanation as to why the inquiry was launched 10 years after his brother's death.
He called the British report a "smear" on Putin, and stressed that rumors claiming his brother was an enemy of the state are false. He added that Aleksandr had planned to return to Russia, and had even told friends about the move.

Probable involvement' of Putin, Russian officials in #Litvinenko death - UK inquiry https://t.co/aoIiAL2nu3pic.twitter.com/muQ1wPqZWy
RT (@RT_com) January 21, 2016

Litvinenko went on to downplay his brother's alleged role as a spy, working for either Russia or MI6, adding that the Western media is to blame for such characterization.
"The Russians had no reason to want Alexander dead," he said. "My brother was not a spy, he was more like a policeman...he was in the FSB [Russian Federal Security Service] but he worked against organized crime, murders, arms trafficking, stuff like that."
Litvinenko was murdered in London in 2006, when assassins allegedly slipped radioactive polonium 21 into his cup of tea at a hotel. But his brother Maksim cast doubt on whether that was actually the poison used, saying he believes it could have been planted to frame the Russians.
"I believe he could have been killed by another poison, maybe thallium, which killed him slowly, and the polonium was planted afterwards," he said. He added that requests to have his brother's body exhumed, in order to verify the presence of polonium, have been ignored by Britain.
"Now after 10 years any trace [of polonium] would have disappeared anyway, so we will never know," he said, adding that British authorities had not collaborated with Russian investigators on the case.
"This case became a big PR campaign against the Russian government and its president in particular," Maksim Litvinenko told RT in an interview in 2014. "The West is pressuring Russia very hard now. The MH-17 crash, Crimea, the war in Ukraine, sanctions against Moscow and now this inquiry I'm not buying that this is a coincidence."
When asked why Aleksandr Litvinenko's widow Marina continues to maintain that the Kremlin is responsible for the murder, he said: "She lives in London, to survive she has to play the game and take this point of view. She can't say anything else."

UK Litvinenko death inquiry biased,' very politicized' Russian ambassador to RT https://t.co/V2qsf4IcpUpic.twitter.com/zAVdGSbtI4
RT (@RT_com) January 21, 2016

Back in 2012, Litvinenko's father backtracked on his claims that Vladimir Putin was responsible for his son's death, and asked the Russian president for forgiveness. Walter Litvinenko told RT that his anger had made him say what the Western media wanted to hear.
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry has also dismissed the British report, blaming London for politicizing the "purely criminal" case of Litvinenko's death.
Russia's UK ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko, told RT that the inquiry's conclusion was "not justified," and that the investigation was "very politicized" and "biased."
"In order to prove something, you have to present the facts. As soon as the British side proves…their conclusions, we will be ready to consider [them]," the ambassador said, adding that the Russian side "did not even have a chance to study the documents [of the investigation]."

https://www.rt.com/news/329804-litvinenk...in-murder/