Nov 28 2006
Polonium Trail Gets More Complicated
The Trail of contamination from the Polonium-210 on (as opposed to in) Alexander Litvienenko just became much more complex and should eliminate the Sushi Bar as the original source of the contamination. This is because two new locations have been added the contamination list:
The statement came as Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian billionaire who was a close friend of Mr Litvinenko, made his first public statement on the death, and Scotland Yard confirmed that it was examining two new locations – the Sheraton Park Lane hotel and 58 Grosvenor Street – in connection with the affair.
This is because the timeline out so to date would require too many sites to be contaminated to fit in between the Sushi Bar meeting (estimated 3:00 – 4:00 PM) and the Mayfair Hotel Bar meeting (4:30 – 6:00 PM). The locations yet to be placed time-wise on the map of contamination are these two new locations and the office of Boris Berezovsky. I did not believe there was sufficient time for Litvinenko to meet with Berezovsky between the Sushi Bar and the Mayfair Hotel given the 30 minute travel window. But to fit three locations into that small window is just not feasible. Clearly the initial contamination location must now be one of the following locations:
(1) The offices of Boris Berezovsky
(2) The Sheraton Park Lane Hotel
(3) 58 Grosvenor Street
It is becoming quite apparent the initial theories promulgated prematurely in the news media are not holding up to the facts as they are being discovered. And the idea Litvinenko contaminated so many locations with a fraction of a gram ingested and then somehow transmitted through the skin is just not realistic. The more sites contaminated the more material needed and the faster Litvinenko would have felt the internal damage.
Update: One cannot help but notice the fact Boris Berezovsky is not out stating his innocence and proving – somehow – that his encounter with Litvinenko was after Litvenenko left the Sushi Bar and his meeting with Scaramella. It is clear that Berezovsky is trying to lay low and not expose himself to anymore wild claims (like a sweating Litvinenko dropping in quickly between the Sushi Bar meetings and the Mayfair Hotel meetings). If I was able to prove where my contact fell in the timeline I would surely be out in the press pushing that as evidence that Putin and his administration had to be involved. I am not at all surprised Berezovsky is not doing this – since I am of the opinion he cannot make the claim he met Litvinenko after the Sushi Bar meeting.
Via NYT’s http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/europe/28cnd-spy.html?ref=world
Um…does it not seem weird this -Paolo Guzzanti, an Italian senator- just gave away meny clues to Scaramella whereabouts?
Anyways…for some reason this “Litvinenko saga” made me think of the British scientist – David Kelly – and his odd demise too.
Maybe the murderer bought it online.
GOOD GRIEF!
“$69 can get you a trace of the commonly used lethal industrial substance…
It’s one of the deadliest imaginable poisons, a radioactive substance about 100 billion times as deadly as cyanide — and a Web site run by a physicist and flying saucer enthusiast offers to sell you a trace amount of it for $69 and send it via the U.S. Postal Service or UPS.
Contrary to early news reports, polonium-210 — the poison suspected in the death of an ex-Russian spy in England — is not some exotic material available solely from nuclear laboratories. The isotope is available from firms that sell it for lawful and legitimate uses in industry, such as removing static electricity from machinery and photographic film.
If ingested in large enough amounts, polonium-210 causes a hideous death.
“This is not a way you’d want to die — it’s a very slow, painful death,” said Kelly L. Classic, a radiation physicist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and the media liaison for the Health Physics Society, a national organization of experts on the health effects of radiation. ”
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/11/28/MNGHSML5LM1.DTL&type=politics
BTW…stories like this really, really make people like Tim Robbins whining of all places at press club microphone about their imaginary “chill winds” — look stupid.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2477277,00.html
The UK has pretty extensive CCTV coverage of most public places. They should be able to trace his movements and have documented evidence of his travels when on foot and possibly even some footage of him on the road. The thing with all this TV coverage is that the authorities there will not need to rely on people’s recollection of who was where and when, they will have documented evidence of who came and went and when they did so.
In this case it is probably better to let the investigation play out and ignore the reporting because the papers don’t have access to the CCTV images unless the authorities release them.
Plot thickens a bit.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2023856.ece
It’s the Independent for Chrissakes! Tell me when someone with some credibility reports Scaramella saying that.
I see you beat me to it TSK9!
Clarice – your denial on this one runs deep.
AJStrata