Dec 10 2006
Polonium-210 Smuggling Confirmed
The UK authorities are admitting there was smuggling of Polonium-210. We know this smuggling happened over three rounds of activity that left trails of Polonium in gathering sites at hotels. Each round of smuggling is linked to trips by Lugovoi to the London and subsequent meetings with Litvinenkp and security companies shown to have been contaminated. The trail leads all the way back to October 16th:
Officers also believe that the assassin handled the deadly polonium 210 so carelessly that he contaminated himself and put other lives at risk.
One investigator said yesterday that while the poison could have been sophisticated, the murderer, or murderers, appear to have left a “crass” trail of radioactive contamination all over London.
Sources close to the inquiry have told The Sunday Telegraph that the polonium was almost certainly smuggled into Britain then stored — before being moved around as the plotters waited for their moment to strike.
Detectives believe that the assassin, or team of assassins, were looking to kill Litvinenko from as early as October 16.
Yes, authorities still couch this as an assassination attempt. The only reason I can see for continuing this line of thinking is that the rooms which were contaminateted did not belong to Lugovoi or Kovtun. If that is the case we still see four to five rooms contaminated and plenty of meetings with Lugovoi and Litvinenko to make their move. To hold up someone has to prove that someone felt like spending $35 million dollars to acquire the amount of Polonium found in Litvinenko.
So while the assassin theory still requires supporting evidence we at least find another theory – the Polonium 210 was stored someplace. And in an interesting twist, we find Scaramella back in the mix.
It has also been disclosed that Mario Scaramella, who was at the sushi restaurant where the poisoning was originally thought to have occurred, is a failed spy who tried to join the Italian secret service three times but was turned down.
Yesterday, the Italian was still in London after doctors at University College Hospital gave him the all-clear. Police are now questioning a Russian assistant of Mr Scaramella.
Now this is an interesting twist. Scaramella has been a constant question mark for many readers on this site and I have been wondering about him a bit. I was willing to follow the recent reporting he was a good guy trying to warn Litvinenko of an attack on them both. But I always found it more than coincidentatl that Scaramella and Litvinenko had alerted authorities to some nuclear smuggling. These tip offs could be the efforts of good Samaritans, or ingenius diversionary efforts to distract from other, larger smuggling activities. OK, time for some wild speculation. What if Scaramella was in line to pick up the Polonium 210 and was getting a status check from Litvinenko? In that scenarion their pat cover story was the email hit list which they would us if ever uncovered.
OK, back to the real world. If this is an assassination then Lugovoi must be innocent and not the leader of the smugging ring. That is the only way Litvinenko survived four or more previous meetings with him after the first Polonium-210 had entered the country.
You may have read this already…
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/world/europe/09poison.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Why would that much radioactive material be smuggled? Dirty bomb is what I’m thinking.
BTW folks, why this seems obvious to those of us obsessed with the story this is a media breakthrough. We have a smuggling effort by numerous people in an effort many stated had involve an army of people. Now we just need to know whether the smuggling was for assassination or something else.
Yes, radioactive poisoning, either a bomb or through contamination.
Ok if the rooms at the Sheraton Park did not belong to Lugovoi and Kovton then how did they (L&K) get contaminated prior to Oct. 30 when polonium was found to have been left in Germany on a couch on which K slept at his ex wife’s?….just saying! The bungling assassins got L & K first? These papers are so wedded to the assassination theory they can’t see the forrest for the trees
Still waiting to hear of radioactive locations where Litvinenko went alone prior to Nov. 1.
Lizarde1, we don’t know (or I don’t know) if Kovtun went back to Hamburg after the 11/1. If he did, then he could have left those traces by just laying down there.
Here’s an article about the 6 Irish people: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/story.asp?j=235367925&p=z3536874x&n=235368811&x=
Probably not worth noting, but I suppose this can’t be related to Gaidar’s strange poisoning scare in Ireland at all. This story is enough to get you pretty paranoid!
Anyway, the people they need to really get to are the people who stayed in these suites after L+K.
Lizarde1,
Litvinenko went to Berezovsky’s offices, met someone at Erinsy (a security firm) and met Scaramella alone and prior to tbe Pin Bar meeting (which all three Russians say was just prior to the game).
Mrmeangenes,
No, I had not seen that – thanks! For all those who doubt Scaramella has a significant dose one must remember there is not cure for this. None. If he did have a large dose he can only wait out the process and hope he can get through it.
Goldfarb:
Alex Goldfarb, a friend of Litvinenko, accused Russian authorities Sunday of trying to obstruct the British probe by preventing Lugovoi and Kovtun from being questioned.
“It’s a clumsy effort to cover up the trace, to prevent British investigators from meeting with two key witnesses,” Goldfarb told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from London.
He added that Lugovoi and Kovtun could be in danger: Authorities “could try to remove them later,” Goldfarb told the AP.
“Another crime is unfolding before our eyes: The removal of two key witnesses, Lugovoi and Kovtun,” he said.
CNN International
oops forgot to add:Goldfarb insisted, however, that Sokolenko had taken part in the meeting, adding that Litvinenko was referring to Sokolenko when he said afterward that a third person he didn’t know and identified as “Vladimir” bore “the look of a killer
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/10/russia.lugovoi.ap/
Why is Goldfarb taking this route: L &K are innocent and S did it?
AJ no, my point was can we find a location in London that ONLY Litvinenko went to BEFORE Nov. 1(without the other 2 Russians) that is contaminated – such as another restaurant or a doctor’s office or a dentist office or some paperwork he filled out or something which would show that he too was contaminated prior to the Millenium bar in the a.m. or whenever before the Sushi bar – this would prove that the assasin theory was bogus and that Litvinenko himself had contact with the PO in October and was already contaninated. So far we only have proof on L &K prior to Nov. 1 – yes Litvineko was with them but what about HIS trail around London Oct 16-Oct 31?
Lost in the Drift: it is confirmed by German Police that he contaminated the sofa in his ex wife’s apartment Oct. 30. So it doesn’t matter if he went back to Germany after Nov. 3
My now standard responses to some red herrings: The polonium would be free for someone working with a government that produces it, so the $30M is misleading. The choice between assassination and smuggling is a false choice (could be both). I posted a quote yesterday that linked Lugovoi and Kuvtun to staying on the 4th floor of the Millennium, hard to say why things happened on November 1 but it would be easy to imagine a long list of reasons. Also, Scaramella apparently didn’t have a 5x dose:
“Mario Scaramella first claimed to have been hit with five times the lethal dose of polonium 210…. Then two days ago, he walked out of the hospital with minute traces of radioactive poisoning but was otherwise perfectly fine. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/world/europe/09poison.html?_r=1&oref=login&pagewanted=print
The press is staying on the assassination story because of positions they took before it was known it was polonium and before all the colateral contamination was discovered. They invested themselves in the assassination angle and are going to remain in that position until they are pushed off of it by hard evidence from Scotland Yard. In other words, they are going to “stand by” their initial speculation for fear of looking like they jumped the gun. Which in my opinion many did.
CP,
To add to your point – Scotland Yard has no intenti0n of helping the news media get it right because they are happy to not have their hand tipped to those they are chasing.
I think they dont want to scare the public before they have the full facts. I am sure that the press have been asked not to pursue certain areas of the story at the moment. You would expect certain papers to try and get for example; the story of the bar workers and that has not happend. For obvious reason they have probably been told not to talkto anyone.
John reids warning about Christmas terror – on a Sunday programme is quite unusual and worrying and I wonder if certain things have come to light.
Even if this was not a smuggling ring – I bet there are people in the UK who have been jumping up and down trying to get hold of some of this stuff.