Dec 08 2006
Litvinenko Probe Moves To Hamburg Germany
I am not surprised at the news that the Litvinenko investigation has moved to Hamburg, Germany. Dmitry Kovtun, one of the two Russians now in a Moscow hospital and the subject of conflicting reports that he has become seriously ill due to Polonium 210 poisoning, has his residence in Germany. This still may be part of the trail eminating from the Millenium Hotel on Nov 1st, but of course there were some paths for the Polonium 210 to enter the UK to be discovered as well.
Dimitri came to London from Germany, but departed with Lugovoi on November 3rd to Moscow.
The second man who was at the meeting in the hotel, Dmitri Kovtun, arrived in London early on November 1 on a flight from Hamburg. Both men returned to Moscow together on the same flight on November 3.
I believe this departing flight is one of the ones where traces of contamination were found. It is not clear if Dmitry Kovtun had returned home in the period from November 3rd until now, but I would assume it is a safe bet he did. But I would also bet he could be someone who was bringing material to London for Lugovoi and Berezovsky.
Update: The plot thickens! It seems Kovtun was with Litvinenko and probably Lugovoi in an early October meeting.
Kovtun has said he first met Litvinenko in October to discuss possible business deals with British companies interested in investing in Russia. He described himself in a recent interview as a longtime resident of Germany who had returned to Moscow to set up a business.
Recall there are now three cycles of Lugovoi coming to London and staying in hotels showing contamination in multiple rooms. Well Kovtun could have been contaminated after one of these earlier incidents. Or he could have been carrying some of that earlier material to Germany.
On a side note there may have been an earlier Polonium posioning in 2004 which killed a Russias associated with another Russian security company headed by another former Putin bodyguard:
While the murder of a businessman is hardly news in Russia, the death of the head of a private security company in St. Petersburg on September 24 has raised eyebrows. According to press reports, Roman Tsepov, general director of the Baltik-Eskort private security firm, had felt sick for two weeks, but doctors were unable to find the cause of his illness. He was subsequently hospitalized in grave condition, and while doctors had planned on sending him to Germany for treatment, the condition had already infected his bone marrow and was untreatable (Delovoi Peterburg, September 24). The St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into his death, which they are treating as a premeditated murder.
More here and here. The death looks just like Polonium-210 poisoning. This does give some credence to the assasination theory. But it could have also been an earlier accident. Who knows. The price of Polonium 210 is too high to see this outside of a massive smuggling effort. These security services move people and property. What is interesting here is Tsepov seems to have been on the side of Putin. I will let people digest this tidbit on their own:
To give an idea of how dangerous Tsepov’s work was, Fontanka.ru reported that in the 1990s his firm often provided private escorts to road convoys of freight and re-exported foreign cars along the route from Western Ukraine to Moscow and St. Petersburg. The latter route was branded “the road of death” because it was routinely raided by bandits.
Berezovsky made his money in reselling cars. And there is that Ukraine connection again – where nuclear material was very plentiful and where some 200 suitcase nukes supposedly disappeared.
Weren’t a lot of the 9/11 guys from or had contacts in Hamburg?
Atta was in Hamburg
Nov. 1 Dmitri Kovtun, arrived in London early on November 1 on a flight from Hamburg. …
the stuff was leaking as early as Oct. 16 – Kovtuv could have tracked it back to Hamburg after that trip
Any word of any of these guys converting to Islam or visiting mosques lately?
Hamburg is a major European center..lizarde
Yes I know I lived there.
Spent some time there myself. “St. Pauli Girl” has a whole different meaning to a resident of Hamburg!
yep what a sleaky place! and it’s cold as hell in winter with the wind
sleezy! not sleaky
the Guardian is now referring to the meeting as in the a.m.:
Litvinenko had dashed to the hotel’s Pine Bar the morning of Nov. 1 to discuss a joint business venture with Andrei Lugovoi, also an ex-Soviet agent, and Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun. Alex Goldfarb, a friend of Litvinenko, said the former spy sipped tea during the meeting, while Lugovoi said he recalls ordering a bottle of gin.
But what if we have this arsy backwards? If Litvinenko and his shady friends were part of a radioactive smuggling ring with links to Chechnya, what the heck would you expect Putin to do? “Engage”, like our rabbit-men would? The danger of dirty bomb, or worse, falling into islamic chechnyan hands inspired Putin to act, proactively and with admirable showmanship. Granted, this is just brain ping-pong on my part.
Drudge in red, but no link
“German police search for polonium in Hamburg flat… “
Well, Clarice, I have nothing but respect for your judgement based on what I have seen you develop in the past, so I am not discounting it out of hand. It is, however, getting harder for me to see how this was a targeted assassination.
I await more hard info from Scotland Yard.
Miised TS’s note– from the article:
“Police in Hamburg said in a statement they planned to examine Kovtun’s apartment in the German city for traces of polonium 210, following media reports that the Russian businessman had flown from Hamburg to London.
The statement did not say when Kovtun was last in Hamburg.”
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-12-09T022517Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-279585-3.xml
Lugovoy is disputing that he has been seriously contaminated.
How does the Guardian explain that Litvinenko was evidently not contaminated when he bought the newspaper at 12:00? There was no contamination found there. They must have had this meeting ater 12:00 and before 3:00. AJ said all along that this timeline was crucial.
It appears that the british police are not being given access to lugovoi and his lawyer says he is not ill. This seems suspicious