Dec 08 2006
Radiation Shows Up In Hamburg, Germany
OK, one more piece in the puzzle as radiation has been detected in the Hamburg apartment of Dmitry Kuvton:
German police say they have found indications of radiation in an apartment apparently used by a contact of fatally poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.
The traces of radiation turned up in the northern city of Hamburg in the apartment used by Dmitry Kovtun, apparently the same man who met Litvinenko in London on November 1, the day he is believed to have fallen mortally ill.
“There are indications that there has been a source of radiation there, but no source of radiation has been found,” said Ulrike Sweden, a spokeswoman for Hamburg police.
Next question is where did this Polonium come from prior to Hamburg and was it destined for London? I now there is this amazing tea cup story and how it contaminated a dish washer. But people take drinks in their rooms and we have no idea which cup or glass or whatever contaminated the dishwasher. We still have contaminated rooms – which get cleaned during the day and may have been the source not only for the dirty cup, but residue on many other items like dishes and glasses. So while the media grasps the assassin theory, we have one path for the smuggling angle (which is now clearly something that must also have happened).
ts where is that quote with 2 spikes from, please?
A few little tid-bits…that I, at least, did not know
blockquote…Like many people in the investigation, Lugovoy had a connection to Berezovsky; he was formerly chief of security at a television network once controlled by the billionaire.
This article is interesting — WAPO generated.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4390298.html
Clarice
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2060070.ece
Kremlin hits back with campaign to smear dead Russian spy
By Cahal Milmo, Jason Bennetto, Andy McSmith and Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Let me know if you have a problem with the paste link
Clarice
That article did make me think of something…that might challenge one of your assumptions, but still goes with the assignation line…what if Lugovoy was aiding and sympathetic to Lit. — but they were not smuggling. What if the covert assassins were targeting Lugovoy – and by proxy Lit. because they were colluding — and Lugovoy is every bit a victim and being denied the opportunity to tell the truth – or pull copy of a Lit. deathbed drama
Granted this is the Mirror, but
full paste, link
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=poison-spy–it-was-in-his-tea&method=full&objectid=18235402&siteid=94762-name_page.html
ts, it doesn’t challenge my assumptions at all. I have never believed that lugovoy and Litvinenko were involved in smuggling po 210. I have always believed Litvinenko was assassinated, and I think he and Kovtun were probably as well.
It is the Times which reported that there was a smuggling operation, a team of Russians trailing them and an assassin.
If that theory is right, Lugovoy et al might have been the trackers –Lugovoy after all was involved iin security operations.And if Russian agents were smuggling radioactive material Litvinenko would have been interested in exposing that. So would Scaramella–tracking this sort of thing is his occupation.
Thanks, Ts for the cite. I do not know how toxocology tests could determine 2 spikes. The Time reported earlier that authorities believed there had been an unsuccessful attempt to poion him at the Sushi bar and a successful attempt at the Pine Bar.
I wish I knew how accurate that “toxocology report” in the Independent was.
Well, Clarice…as it dribbles out, it does seem to me that he was targeted and they were not happy who he was meeting and talking to…I strongly think that Lugovoy was every bit as much as a target as Lit. and quite possibly the initial target….
Also…is make-up of a person better able to fight off this poisoning for longer periods of time? For instance, not ALL people react the same way – at least initially to poisons, exposures etc. – perhaps some people’s DNA or make-up – successfully fight the toxin longer?
I don’t know, ts.I don’t think anyone knows much about it. Someone posted two cases in England –One where a worker was exposed and got sicker than his colleagues and it turned out he was a nail biter; another where a bag full of it fell and the stuff spread in the air and no one was harmed. That suggests ingestion is more harmful than inhalation, but I don’t know.
–That suggests ingestion is more harmful than inhalation, but I don’t know.–
Did tea come before sushi (I can’t keep this part straight, makes my head hurt)?
Sushi bad guy #? uses Spray…Then at a more exclusive establishment, assian #? decides to open spray bottle and pour it in his drink in order to go undetected– can’t pull off a “spray” inconspicuously at Pine Bar – thereby the mistake??
The most recently reported leak is that Litvinenko was poisoned at the Pine Bar in the morning before he had Sushi IIRC. He did go there twice that day..once before meeting Scaramella and then more briefly afterward.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/09/uk.russia.spy.germany.ap/
–Sushi bad guy #? uses Spray…Then at a more exclusive establishment, assassin #? decides to open spray bottle and pour it in his drink in order to go undetected– can’t pull off a “spray†inconspicuously at Pine Bar – thereby the mistake??–
I shouldn’t have used the word “then”…it could be either/or, with multiple “sprayers” spraying over a periods of time and one goofed and decided to pour his spray…thereby Lit.’s super lethal execrated time;line death.
So I’ll go with only Sasha being targeted, in his tea, prior to sushi. All the rest via secondary contamination, the difference between Kovtun/Lugovoi and Scaramella being either that 1) K/L were the assassins (explains the multiple trails) or 2) by proximity – Sasha was less formal with/physically closer to K/L than S (still don’t believe the 5x lethal dose is accurate for S). Pretty remarkable news about the single very hot cup (in this case I think the reporting is accurate – hotter than anything else found would be my interpretation), no question about assassination now.
According to Spiegel Online, the radioactivity was found in the apartment of Kovtun’s German ex-wife at Erzbergerstraße 4, Ottensen, Hamburg. Kovtun’s apartment is in the same building.
Experts from the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) found ‘light radiation, but no contamination’ (which I imagine means the source of the radiation was no longer there). A police spokesperson said that it cannot be determined whether it was a person or an object which had given off the radiation. The BKA and the Hamburg police have set up a joint special commission called ‘Dritter Mann’ (‘Third Man’) which will adopt ‘very comprehensive measures’ of investigation, including a ‘fine scan’ of all apartments in the building in question. Another police spokesperson said that ‘it concerns a weakly-radiating substance, which has no effect beyond a radius of 3.8 centimetres. Only the ingestion of the substance or direct contact with open wounds is dangerous.’ The police were not able to say whether Kovtun had returned to his Hamburg apartment after the meeting with Litvinenko in London, though he probably went to London from Hamburg. The police also rejected media speculation that an attack on Litvinenko could have been prepared in Hamburg.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,453490,00.html
per Die Welt Germans are looking at an airplane from “German Wings”? that Kovtun flew in to London and also another residence of his in Pinneburg
Also I would like everyone to notice that the apartment of Kovton was NOT searched until yesterday after the Monday/Tuesday questioning by police in Moscow….in fact this seems a little slow in response –
Wow:
Police said they found traces of alpha radiation at the Hamburg apartment of the ex-wife of Dmitry Kovtun, who met Litvinenko in London on Nov. 1, the day the former spy is believed to have fallen ill.
They also said an initial scan had shown contamination at the home in Haselau, west of the port city, of his ex-wife’s mother.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/09/europe/EU_GEN_Germany_Poisoned_Spy.php
More: Specialists found no trace of polonium-210, the rare radioactive substance that killed Litvinenko, at the apartment of Kovtun himself in the Hamburg district of Ottensen.
However, police said in a statement Saturday they found “contamination that makes a fine examination necessary” at two locations in an apartment in the same building used by Kovtun’s ex-wife.
Police later sealed off a property in Haselau, outside Hamburg, for further tests after finding traces of contamination there.
The traces were found in the bathroom and living room of the Hamburg apartment, and on a bed and a chair at the property in Haselau. Further tests were to determine whether the contamination was linked to polonium-210.
Kovtun’s ex-wife and her mother were questioned by police. Authorities did not identify the 31-year-old ex-wife.
Couldn’t copy and paste so – first there are TWO apartments in the building in Hamburg- one is the exwife adn one is Kovtuv. Traces were found in the exwife’s. In addition there is a property in Haselau connected to the exwife where Police said traces were found in the living room and bathroom of the exwife