Dec 03 2006
Litvinenko Crazy Enough To Build Chechen Bomb
Associates of Litvinenko point to a man desparate for money, and crazy enough to build a Chechen dirty bomb:
In early May, Litvinenko first approached Julia Svetlichnaja, a 33-year-old Russian-born academic who is examining the roots of the Chechen conflict for a book she is writing. Litvinenko asked if she was interested in becoming involved in his ‘blackmail’ project.
‘He told me he was going to blackmail or sell sensitive information about all kinds of powerful people including oligarchs, corrupt officials and sources in the Kremlin,’ she said. ‘He mentioned a figure of £10,000 they would pay each time to stop him broadcasting these FSB documents. Litvinenko was short of money and was adamant that he could obtain any files he wanted.’
…
It appears Litvinenko, a vociferous critic of President Vladimir Putin, may have finally acquired the firepower to hurt some of the Kremlin’s most powerful interests. Svetlichnaja said: ‘He did not seem worried. Quite the opposite; Litvinenko sensed he could finally make some money of his own after years of being supported by his friend [and fellow Russian exile] Boris Berezovsky.’
…
Among the theories that remain open is that the poisonings were an accident that happened while Litvinenko tried to assemble a dirty bomb for Chechen rebels. Those who know him believe he was crazy enough to attempt such a thing and, in the past week, some have implicated him in the smuggling of nuclear materials from Russia.
This week should bring the results of the postmortem on Litvinenko. For the first time, detectives will know how much polonium he ingested. Vast quantities would point to a murder; smaller quantities possibly to accidental contamination. From Washington to London to Moscow, detectives, governments and spies are watching and waiting.
So it seems we have a man desparate for cash and fearless about how he could obtain it. As I wrote earlier today here and here, I am of the opinion an assassination attempt would not spend the extra amounts of money to procure 100’s of lethal doses for just one man. A single dose of Polonium-210 should cost around $1 million dollars (a heavy price to pay to replace one bullet). Since Litvinenko had 100 times the lethal dose I doubt seriously we are talkiing about a $100 Million hit job. No way. So I am of the opinion the more Polonium-210 found the less likely it is an assasination attempt.
Update: It seems “Sasha” (as Litvinenko is known) was involved with nuclear material smuggling last year – tied to Scaramella:
FOUR ITALIANS PROBED ON SUSPECTED URANIUM TRAFFIC
Source: Corriere della Sera website, Milan, in Italian 11 Jun 05
ACC-NO: A20050612118-BB2A-GNW
LENGTH: 647 words
HEADLINE: FOUR ITALIANS PROBED ON SUSPECTED URANIUM TRAFFIC
Text of report by Virginia Piccolillo, “Uranium to make atom bomb sold to
four Italians”, published by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera website
on 11 JuneRome: “During the month of September 2004 I was approached by an Ukrainian
national, whom I know by the name of Sasha, who wanted to sell me a
briefcase containing radioactive material, and, more precisely, uranium for
military use.” There is enough testimony by Giovanni Guidi, a Rimini
businessman, and by other defendants – Giorgio Gregoretti, Elmo Olivieri and
Giuseppe Genghini – to fuel a spy story [preceding two words published in
English] worthy of a novel by Le Carre. Involved is a briefcase containing
five kilos of highly enriched uranium, half of which would be enough to
build an atomic device, which remained for months in a Rimini garage. A
briefcase, however, which eluded investigators, and which managed to get
back into the hands of the Ukrainian national, who perhaps is still in
Italy. Together with another briefcase having a similar content, and a third
believed to conceal a tracking system. The entire kit geared to the assembly
of a small tactical atomic bomb.A mystery story fuelled by information supplied the Rimini police department
by a consultant of the Mitrokhin committee, Mario Scaramella, who, acting on
behalf of the agency presided over by Paolo Guzzanti, was trying to track
illegal funds from the former USSR that had transited through [the Republic
of ] San Marino. The two defendants’ defence attorney warns that this “could
be the trial of the century, but also the century’s biggest hoax”. The
mystery, however, continues, and emerges from the testimony of the
defendants, who were questioned Wednesday [8 June] night and all day
Thursday, and subsequently released with the charge of possession of war
weapons.The uranium was allegedly contained in a hermetically sealed, black, leather
briefcase, along with a photo illustrating its content. Five uranium bars
weighing one kilo each. Sasha delivered the briefcase to Guidi. “My
precarious economic situation induced me to accept,” explains the
46-year-old Rimini businessman, who is married to a Russian woman, and runs
an import-export firm that has dealings with Russia and Ukraine. Guidi in
turn informed Giorgio Gregoretti, who “placed it [the briefcase] in a
cardboard box, which he subsequently stored in his garage.” There it
remained until it was placed in the trunk of Gregoretti’s car, where it was
seen by Elmo Olivieri, a financial consultant. Time passes “without their
finding anyone interested in the material”, says Guidi, and the Ukrainian
“asks for the briefcase back”.Guidi also testified that “even another briefcase was to arrive” from the
warehouse of a multinational firm in Basel. At which time he makes another
bid, this time asking for 60/70,000 euros, in addition to bank guarantees
sealed by a three-million-euro credit letter. “We often went to San Marino,”
but nothing came of it, says Guidi. At this point, the three decide to ask
for Genghini’s help, “who in the past had proven to be a war-material
expert”, says Guidi, who reports having learned from Genghini himself that
the uranium was worth 30m euro per kg. Genghini admits having spoken of
radioactive material, but “geared to hospital use”. Later, according to
Guidi, Olivieri mentions a prospective purchaser: a Swiss multinational.
Then, the affair gets muddled. Guidi boasts of being protected by the
intelligence services, and claims he was threatened on 2 June. The only sure
thing is that the Rimini police, headed by Sebastiano Riccio, start looking
for the “atomic” briefcases on 9 June, as soon as they learn that the
defendants are planning to transfer to Lugano. The case is by no means
closed, with search operations still under way.Source: Corriere della Sera website, Milan, in Italian 11 Jun 05
LOAD-DATE: June 12, 2005
Hat tip Reader SBD. I have no idea if this is the same man – but it could be.
Sasha is as common a name in Eastern Europe as Joe is here. Scaramella testified against Litvinenko in 2000 when he was smuggling nuclear material for Russia’s FSB, I seriously doubt that he’d have flown to London to warn Litvinenko if he was this “Sasha”, trading nuclear material privately.
Scaramella is clean.
Three good new pieces in the Times (UK):
1.” FORMER bodyguard to President Vladimir Putin was murdered with a poison that produced symptoms remarkably similar to those of Alexander Litvinenko it emerged yesterday, writes Jonathan Calvert.
Roman Tsepov died aged 42 in 2004 after suffering severe radiation sickness brought on by a mystery substance he had ingested with food or drink.
The case suggests that use of radioactive poisons — similar to the polonium-210 that killed Litvinenko — may be more widespread than previously thought.
The nature of the poison is still a subject of speculation. Some reports in Russia say he was given a huge dose of a drug normally used to combat leukaemia and other cancers. “http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2484298,00.html
2.”Trained killers of the old school
ON the day Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned, the Italian defence consultant Mario Scaramella handed him documents that named a private Russian security agency called Dignity and Honour as a possible threat to his life, writes John Follain.
At first sight, the Moscow-based organisation apparently has all the credentials for committing skulduggery.
Headed by Colonel Valentin Velichko, a former KGB officer, it offers for hire ex-KGB spies including Spetsnaz-trained killers and experts in placing listening devices.
It boasts close links to the FSB (the Federal Security Service, the former KGB), and the Foreign Intelligence Service (the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, or SVR). President Vladimir Putin is said to be an admirer.
“They are old-fashioned spies who couldn’t give up the game,†a Russian security source said. “Technically, they are all retired. But most people see them as an extension of Putin’s secret service.â€
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2484254,00.html
3.”Curse of the Moscow bombs
Many like Litvinenko who probed Putin’s war on Chechnya are dead, writes Mark Franchetti in Moscow
The series of bomb attacks on apartment blocks in September 1999 claimed 300 lives and brought terror to the streets of Moscow and two other Russian cities.
Unknown terrorists had rented accommodation on the ground floor of the apartment blocks and filled them with explosives which destroyed the buildings.
Hundreds of dead and injured were plucked from the rubble as the attacks continued over many days and more than 30,000 buildings were searched in Moscow as panic took hold.
The Kremlin pointed the finger at rebels in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. It used the blasts to justify a new wave of “anti-terrorist†operations and, a few weeks later, troops were sent back into Chechnya for a second time.
But doubts have persisted about the Kremlin’s official version of events. Sceptics have argued that Chechen rebels had nothing to gain from planting the bombs. The Chechens had won the first war in 1996 and had already gained de facto independence.
The new war, however, benefited one man: Vladimir Putin, now Russian president. At the time he had only recently been appointed prime minister and was a little known figure among the Russian electorate”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2484252,00.html
The question still remains, who pointed to polonium-210 as the poison?? They couldn’t figure it out in 2004 but they knew to look for it in Litvinenko!!
Read yesterday’s 5 pp Times piece for the details..Because it didn;t set off a geiger counter and because it appeared to be obvious radiation, specialists in readiation poisoning were called in. They could not figure it out until a day before Litvinenko died. Even with these specialists.
WAS HE ON THE VERGE OF UNMASKING A MASTER SPY AT THE HEART OF THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT?
Associated Newspapers Ltd
MAIL ON SUNDAY (London)
December 3, 2006 Sunday
LENGTH: 410 words
HEADLINE: WAS HE ON THE VERGE OF UNMASKING A MASTER SPY AT THE HEART OF THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT?
BYLINE: BY JASON LEWIS
BODY:
A MYSTERIOUS agent who leaked British defence secrets to the Russians is now at the centre of the hunt for the murderer of Alexander Litvinenko.
Investigators believe Litvinenko may have been killed to protect the agent ñ codenamed Uchitel, ‘The Teacher’ by his former KGB paymasters.
Protecting The Teacher is said to be a top priority for Russian intelligence. He is said to be a ‘very highly placed’ European politician and helped the Russians obtain top-secret plans of the Tornado fighter jet while it was being developed for Nato.
During the last months of his life, Litvinenko was involved in a mole hunt to finally expose the agent’s identity and to bring down a spy ring of politicians, scientists and criminal figures centred around Italy.
Litvinenko’s investigation apparently led to Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi being accused of being a Soviet agent during a debate in the European Parliament, allegations Mr Prodi has consistently denied.
Mario Scaramella, the Italian academic whom Litvinenko met in a London sushi bar on the day he is thought to have been poisoned with radioactive polonium-210, was also on the trail of the Russian agent.
Scaramella is now also being treated for exposure to the deadly radioactive material.
The pair were said to have been closing in on the spy and investigators are understood to be examining if this led to Litvinenko’s murder.
The Teacher’s existence was first revealed after MI6 persuaded the former KGB chief archivist Vasili Mitrokhin to defect in 1992, bringing with him a vast document stash.
The operation was masterminded by the agency’s then station chief in Moscow, John Scarlett, now Chief of MI6. Sources say MI6 is taking a ‘close interest’ in the Litvinenko case, although it has ‘no direct involvement’ in the investigation.
Details of the Mitrokhin archive were first published in 2000 in a book by Cambridge Professor Christopher Andrew. Jointly written with Mitrokhin himself, the book reveals key details about The Teacher.
Prof Andrew wrote that Uchitel was probably the most important agent targeting Western defence secrets in the late Seventies and early Eighties. ‘Uchitel taught at a major university and used his wide range of academic and business contacts to carry out other KGB assignments in America and Germany,’ he wrote.
‘Among the intelligence he supplied was information on Nato’s newest combat military aircraft, the Tornado, jointly developed by Britain, Germany and Italy.’
SBD
Is obvious this polonium was handled by amateurs not the efficient KGB. Agree on the bullet theory, a lot cheaper and efficient. This is obvious contraband gone bad. This Sasha guy was full of himself and a bit crazy. He accused Putin to protect all the other people involved,obviously amateurs and probably Chechans. If they follow the cross contamination they ‘ll be able to find all invoved alive or dead.
Obvious to you maybe. Not to me.
SBD,
Remember not to publish the entire story if you can find a link!
AJStrata
Okay, so we have about 100 million dollars worth of polonium in the Russian, a million dollars worth or so in the Italian, and who knows how many millions of dollars worth of the stuff scattered all over planes, hotel rooms, and various other people. Doesn’t make sense.
Who would pay for that much polonium for Chechen rebels or al Qaida? We are talking a billion dollar dirty bomb. Iran might donate that kind of material to such a cause. What if Litvinenko was moving the stuff for free.
The Italians again! Like the Sgrena story? Where some colonel was waiting at the plane, after her #1 Italian spy dropped many millions of dollars in Iraq?
Look no further.
Where would everything meet? Iraq?
Alpha. Beta. Gamma. The Geiger Counter does NOT pick up ALPHA!
And, the way I see this story going? It’s EXPOSED the plot, that may in fact cost many millions of dollars! With the likelihood that Russia, ahead, no matter what, would be blamed for providing the material for a dirty bomb.
Wouldn’t this panic Putin?
Let alone what’s going on with the threats apparent from “getting a city” hurt, somewhere.
But with the death of Litvenenko, has the plans gone awry?
If you want to use one man; and you’ve read LeCarre. You know the monster was a sniper. The story is way beyond that now!
But the trail runs cold? How so? Nuclear stuff, here, has left MARKERS. Plus a lot of spies scared out of their wits that they inadvertently exposed their wives and children. As well as themselves. Seems DISEASE speaks the TRUTH, better than phony baloney!
I’m so glad to come here every day. Just to watch this one develop! The Russian Black Marketeers are friends TO NO ONE! Strictly in the terror business for themselves.
A/J. What do you think Putin is doing? He, too, owns a secret service. And, whose side would he be playing on? He’s not one of our players! Gosh, what did bush2 say he saw in Pooty-poot’s eyes?
By the way? A bomb that explodes, would it “release” the dirty material? Or would the nuclear stuff be “eaten up” in the blast? ANd, how many more people are running to physicians hoping to find out if they’ve been contaminated by stuff they couldn’t smell? Or taste?
Alpha particles. A piece of toilet paper would shield ya. It doesn’t go through clothes. And, the poor shusi bar owner. Where does he get business, now?
Oh. And, in what foot locker is the “material” being stored in, now?
Greedy people who manage to kill themselves like this. And, it’s not fiction. A/J, I am so glad you’ve been poking holes in the “official story.” The one Litvinenko’s “publicist” tried to spin out.
I think AJ is getting far ahead of the facts at this point, and I do not doubt for one moment that the Russian govt and mafia spinners are spinning like crazy to their usual patsies (i.e. The Independent.)
I believe the Times articles (including the three today I cited, are sourced from WhiteHall and better reflect what the govt of the UK has found and is doing.
The separation between the official Russian govt and Putin’s buddy ex-KGB officers now running multi billion industries in Russia is paper thin. It’s become a fascist kleptocracy with tentacles thru/out the flabby assed West.
That is the real problem here. Everyone exposed to that stuff is living on borrowed time. Most will probably develop leukemia and other cancers (such as bladder cancer if ingested, lung and bladder cancer if inhaled). Exposure to even small amounts of this stuff is really, really, really dangerous. It is polonium that is thought to be responsible for most cancers relating to cigarette smoking and that exposure is in such small amounts that it is almost not measurable.
While I will certainly agree 100% with that statement, I also think that when it comes to murder, the Russians are pretty much world class. Probably the best in the world at it. Crime is what Russia does. This affair was a serious bungle if the Russians did it.
I cannot think of a better way to spread terror than giving an enemy a dose of radiation so large he dies horribly before the world.
And in fact that has happened in numerous cases where–what a coincidence–the victims were anti-Putin.
I wouldn’t exactly say “numerous” cases. There is, as far as I know one other case of similar symptoms several years ago of an ex Putin bodyguard.
I know that over the past three days I have posted a number of stories detailing death by toxins and radiation of other Putin foes.
Check out the Times story I posted a few hours ago on the deaths of those who questioned the Chechen apt bombing story. And yesterday an EU parliamentarian said the world was having a major problem with the large number of Russians dying mysteriously.
If I am doing my math correctly, at a million dollars a dose, it would cost $1 billion to kill 1000 people. I am not trying to play down the threat involved with polonium, but if the million dollar/dose figure is accurate, it sounds too expensive to be a WMD. Granted, I am not putting a dollar value on the caused panic and hysteria. As Mr AJ says, there are much cheaper ways to kill people.
Clarice, here is what is so odd about all of this. Most people say that 1 microgram is a fatal dose. 2 micrograms would be an assured fatal dose. If given 10 micrograms, he would most certainly die but best of all, he probably would not have developed symptoms as quickly allowing the killer more time for a getaway and for people’s memories to fade. In other words, had a smaller dose been used, he might not have taken ill for a week or so and the symptoms might not have been so clear. It might have caused him to be diagnosed with leukemia or possibly die from some secondary infection resulting from a dead immune system.
He was given a huge dose of a very rare and very expensive and very dangerous poison. The symptoms resulting from this huge dose were very obvious. How can people on one hand give the Russians so much credit for being so devious in some things yet think they are so completely inept in this one? Everything surrounding this case has “amateur” or “accident” written all over it.
There is poison all over the place. It is like shooting someone 100 times and then leaving a trail of bullets everywhere and in people’s pockets and on airplanes and in hotel rooms. Why shoot someone 100 times when twice will do? Why leave all this contamination all over the place? Oh, and not only imagine these are bullets left all over the place, imagine they are bullets that sometimes go off all by themselves and can kill someone who happens to be near one. This poison can cause cancers in very small doses, and I mean very, very small doses … a few atoms of the stuff is enough if brought into the lungs to cause cancer down the road.
Only a killer who is not afraid of poisoning themself would use this poison.
“If I am doing my math correctly, at a million dollars a dose, it would cost $1 billion to kill 1000 people. I am not trying to play down the threat involved with polonium, but if the million dollar/dose figure is accurate, it sounds too expensive to be a WMD.”
True, if the material is bought on the open market. The costs change, though, if it is manufactured by Iran in their nuclear program and given to terrorists free of charge.
The reports of the amount of polonium may be greatly exaggerated:
”
News of the World reports:
It has beem revealed that Litvinenko was poisoned with a massive overdose of the deadly polonium-210. A Whitehall source told the News of the World: “A few microbes would be fatal, but we think he had a TEASPOON’S worth—more than a billion times what was needed to kill him.”
A few microbes? What the H*ll is a microbes worth of Po-210? And what’s with the teaspoon’s worth? A teaspoon is about 4.9 cm^3, Po-210 has a density of about 9.3 grams/cm^3, so we are talking about 9.3*4.9 ~ 45.6 grams of Po-210. At 140 watts/gram, that amounts to 6379 watts, or the equivalent of about 3.5 7″ electric stove top burners at full power. Litvinenko should have fried, or at least burst into flames in an astonishing display of spontaneous combustion. Not to mention the boiling water in which the Polonium was dissolved, not to mention the fearsome blue glow. Now, maybe the Whitehall source is talking about an isotopic mixture with the Po-210 a small fraction thereof, but that isn’t what is written.
Twelve years ago I let my subscription to Time magazine lapse after one too many utterly crap science articles. On the evidence of this current excrescence journalism hasn’t improved much since. All that is required to do better is that the reporter have a little bit of curiosity and a capacity for basic arithmetic, two qualities that seem sadly out of fashion in the profession. And how the heck did AllahPundit let that one go by without comment? Something is very wrong with education in this country.
Update: How big is a microbe? The typical size range is about 1-10 microns, with some recently discovered giant microbes ranging up to 1mm, and some smaller microbes down to a few tenths of a micron. To be generous, say about 10 microns. So the equivalent mass of Polonium would be about .01 μg, which is about the LD50/30 dose. So that part of the article is not so far off. But I think the quote should have been elucidated by adding something along the lines of “a few microbe sized particles of Polonium”. http://yargb.blogspot.com/2006/12/teaspoon-full-of-polonium-210.html
Seneca, one of the bright posters there, answers why such a big dose?
First off, 210Po is pretty exotic, and the symptoms match a lot of other things besides bone marrow absorption of an alpha emitter; the killer may have hoped it would be just a mysterious death by illness. From the sound of things, they overshot the necessary dose by maybe an order of magnitude — a couple weeks is actually pretty fast — but I’d be real interested tom hear if there have been an other unexpected cases of aplastic anemia among Russians recently.
Second, it’s an unpleasant death, extremely unpleasant: besides the lost hair and increasing weakness, you get violent nausea, violent diarrhea, hemorrhage from pretty much all orifices. If it is identified, as this was, then you also have the knowledge for weeks that you’re doomed, you’re already dead.
Third, it’s an effective terror weapon. It can be concealed easily, the amount in much smaller than a single grain of salt, and it’s undetectable. Since no one knows who actually delivered it, or how, then the whole Russian community in London has to start wondering if they should eat anything except canned food bought randomly away from home. What’s more, one not only has to be afraid for one’s self, but for one’s family, neighbors, even people they meet in passing.
11:33 AM, December 03, 2006