Pankratov on Polonium, Lugovoi on MI6
Over at Kirill Pankratov’s LJ, Kirill asks the good question, ‘Why Polonium?’
It is after all a very poor and very unusual choice as a poison. Its prime purpose is to trigger bombs. So he offers the three most widely touted rationales and asks his readers which they support.
1. The Big Red Arrow
Polonium was deliberately chosen to point to Russia, one of the world’s largest producers, or as a pointer to someone with a large wallet and resources, such as Berezovsky. Either way, it was a plant and a frame.
2. The Bungled Poisoning
The killer was somehow able to obtain Polonium but knew little about it. The bungling amateur took no precautions, nor did he realise that modern methods would quickly track and trace his every move.
Problem with this theory is that anyone going to the enormous trouble and expense of acquiring Polonium would surely have studied its properties. And there’s plenty of information readily available.
3. The Delayed Hit
In this scenario, the hitman knows much about Polonium. The idea is that a small dose is given to Litvinenko which takes effect months after the hit, by which time traces had decayed and the poisoning could not be linked to any particular episode. But the dosage is miscalculated.
The problem with this theory is that a correct, infinitely small dose of radioactivity for an individual organism is almost impossible to calculate and therefore high-risk. Either one does not silence the victim prior to any revelations, or the poisoning is discovered too early. Leaving aside for a moment the huge doubt that Litvinenko had any time-sensitive revelations.
If it was a hit, then only the first scenario has no inherent contradictions. And it is interesting to note that Lugovoi is now claiming a false flag operation at his press conference: that he was set up by British intelligence.
There is some credence for this theory. Writing in the ‘Asia Times‘, Karl K Turekian, a Yale professor notes that it’s hard to leave a trail of Polonium accidentally. It’s emissions won’t pass through a piece of paper. Do assassins really take their poisons out and play with them on the plane and in the bar? Interestingly, he adds that the very act of looking for it suggested pre-knowledge.
Quote:
‘ I was surprised that somebody was clever enough to look for Polonium-210 during the investigation. If you were looking for alpha emitters, there is a diagnostic energy for Polonium-210 no one would mistake. Simply the act of looking for it showed some insight into what might have been used, and I have no idea how they got that insight. Maybe they knew something about this person or the people he hung around with.’
Litvinenko’s connections with MI6 are well-documented. He was working with double-agent Oleg Gordievsky on the smearing of Romano Prodi and both Gordievsky and Litvinenko were involved with briefing Mario Scaramella and UKIP MEP Gerrard Batten. Gordievsky has also been the source of much disinformation leaked to the press on the Litvinenko affair - hilariously debunked by Kovtun.
I was sitting on the edge of my mousepad for Lugovoy’s press-conference, but it hardly tells us anything we didn’t know. Or that MI6 whistleblower, David Shayler, didn’t suspect from the beginning. Even the BBC is finding Lugovoy a most unlikely assassin.
As the UK Daily Pundit drily observed, the charging of Lugovoy probably has more to do with finding Litvinenko not guilty than anything else. Quote:
Alexander Litvinenko: Not Guilty
‘The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that Chechen sympathiser, Alexander Litvinenko, was not in the process of smuggling Polonium 210 which was to have been used as a component in a ‘dirty bomb’, assembled and detonated in the London area by Islamic extremists.
I don’t blame the CPS. Imagine the fuss it would cause …. ‘
[...] Lugovoi: Berezovsky, British MI6, or Russian Mafia murdered Litvinenko The British police have implicated Lugovoi in Litvinenko’s poisoning with Polonium and have asked for his extradition to Britain. Today, Lugovoi fought back with a press conference where he indicated that he did not have a motive to kill Litvinenko but Berezovsky, Britain’s MI6, and the Russian mafia did and they would all have the means to carry out such a killing. While claiming to have evidence and throwing out that many possible other suspects at once smacks of desperation rather than reality. Sean found the audio of the press conference. Copy Dude posted today a translation asking “Why Polonium?” (original LJ posting in Russian) and also tacked on a recap of some of the other alternative theories that he mentioned before. It seems that Lugovoi and Litvinenko were both working every angle and may have both been burned, but unfortunately only one of them is here to tell the story. It seems everyone is believing the dead man who told his father “Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun poisoned me, I trusted them, and they deceived me.’” Litvinenko also trusted Berezovsky and as this blog noted, there was certainly time and reasonable proximity to Berezovsky just hours before Litvinenko met with Lugovoi. The story is full of enough intrigue that, like the the Kennedy assassination, we will probably be watching new films about these events 30 years from now. Register to comment on “Lugovoi Suggests Berezovsky, British MI6, and Russian Mafia as Litvinenko’s Murders” __________________ Subscribe to my blog via RSS — Please Register to Comment — Registration Help [...]
Hey, carny dude,
Still peddling this, along with the rest of your bettalife-gettalife garbage?
Hey maryposa - still trying to save up for a perscription of viagra?
Dear Copydude,
Did you see the news about Russia - as the only remaining producer - not giving a sample of its dioxin to the Yushchenko poisoning investigation? This is simply so stupid. What if the dioxin that poisoned Yushchenko was manufactured in Russia? It still doesn’t prove that Russia was behind it, unless dioxin is not at all available on the “market” for such things. If it is, next to anyone could have bought it to poison Yushchenko. So, really Russia’s stubborn rejection of providing a dioxin sample to Ukrainian investigators only serves to incriminate Moscow, when doing the opposite - if the poison used on Yushchenko would be Russian - would prove nothing or at least very little. At times, one really wonders how they think in Moscow.
Yours,
Vilhelm
Hayate: No, never have, but now it makes sense why you’re here. So John Weaver hucksters for Viagra, too?
Why should a University of Illinois professor of materials science & physics, best known for his world-famous birthday parties and delicious hot lunches, “huckster for viagra”?
Don’t be daft or coy, Mark. Scroll up this page and hit the “About” tab. John contends he’s a copywriter: Copydude. Get it now?
I don’t see anything in the About section (or anywhere else at this site) identifying the blogger as “John Weaver”. Where do you get your information? Even if the writer is now calling himself John Weaver (which remains to be demonstrated), I doubt if that is his original name, because of the photo (of the writer).
By the way, I see that another London Sunday newspaper has quoted a waiter as saying that he suspects the poison was “sprayed into the teapot” at the table shared by Litvinenko and the others, because when he came to pick it up it was unusually yellow and thick to the point of being gooey. That’s an interesting detail, but I had thought that the mystery teapot was prepared in a hotel room by one of those dastardly Russians, not served at table by one of Her Majesty’s subjects.
I hope Copydude gets busy on this one. I haven’t had a dose of his biting sarcasm for weeks, and I’m getting antsy. He said something about giving up the blogs to finish a long overdue tourist guide to Kaliningrad. (Yeah, he’ll make a name with THAT alright. We’re all waiting with baited breath to find out which concrete apartment blocks have the least density of needle-sharing junkies.)
By the way, I also notice that Britain is expelling four minor Russian diplomats in response to the failure of Russia to violate its own constitution by extraditing the fall-guys (er, suspects) in the Litvinenko case. The Brits are calling this a “proportionate response”.
You gotta love the dry British wit. If they really believe that the Russian businessmen are a cabal of diabolical murderers, then playing tit-for-tat games of diplomatic hand-slapping are a proportionate response in the same way that the miniature train at the Blenheim Pleasure Gardens constitutes a tourist attraction. (”The sight of fifty English people crouched on a little train in a cold grey drizzle waiting to be taken 200 yards and thinking they were having fun is one I shall not forget in a hurry.”)
(Mariposa: You don’t by any chance live in Frodsham, do you?)
I’m John Weaver of John Weaver Associates, Copywriters in the UK. What are all these comments apparently referring to me - can someone enlighten me please?
Hello John
I’m afraid you have been dragged into a case of mistaken identity. The byline on the Atlantic Free Press article should have read ‘copydude’. All the other articles on AFP appear with this byline.
Mariposa fancies herself as an investigative journo, googled your name, put 2 and 2 together and made 5 without cross-checking any other data.
This kind of sloppy thinking shows why she has completely failed to comprehend the Litvinenko case. I did work as a copywriter, but there the similarity ends.
I left her disinformation in the comments as a bit of fun. Probably now time to add this disclaimer.
This subject brings to memory a Moscow Times article by Ira Straus.
I found it very wrong headed for a number of reasons. He likened Litvinenko’s assassination to that of Kirov. The latter refers to the Leningrad CP leader who Stalin likely had bumped off for political reasons. The comparison lacks merit. Kirov was an up and coming political figure who had a pretty good following prior to his murder. Litvinenko was a relatively low level KGB/FSB employee, who then joined up with a dubious exiled Russian oligarch in Berezovsky. Simple common sense suggests that Litvinenko’s assassination didn’t likely come from atop the Kremlin leadership, or from anyone in the current Russian government. He was politically insignificant in life. In the same article, Straus says that Russia has a “Syrian disease.” That reference pertaining to Syria’s apparent role (as claimed by some) in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. One which Syria denies. Whereas there might be evidence showing Syrian involvement with that act (I’m not so familar on the particulars), there’s no proof whatsoever of Russian government involvement with Litvinenko’s assassination. When making comparisons, one should be aware of the differences. Hariri was a prominent figure unlike Litvinenko. The Lugovoy factor is circumstantial at best with other conflicting points. Like Litvinenko’s anti-Putin Italian friend, who is infected with plutonium. Said Italian friend has been arrested for reasons having to do with arms smuggling. Litvinenko converted to Islam and was sympathetic to Chechen separatists. Perhaps he accidentally poisoned himself. Has the autopsy report on Litvinenko been released? In that piece, Straus goes on to bash Russian media.
Same old, same old.
Budget conscious travellers can find a room here, without washbasin, from as little as 40 zloty. But I thought it well worth paying the extra for a luxe room. Here you get a cassette-player and a foggy television, with which you can watch old Phil Silvers and Shelly Winters films with Polish commentary. Ray Bradbury-style time travel comes free.