Dec 10 2006
Millenium Hotel Room Contamination Confirmed
Update: I agree with readers here that the German police were thorough and complete and were able to resolve Kovtun’s travels and the contamination trail much faster than their British counterparts – unless the media is being spun by UK authorities. The German authorities are being very pragmatic and they too note that Kovtun probably did not bring Polonium-210 with him from Russia, but probably handled it there.
The German inquiry focuses on whether he was in illegal contact with radioactive materials rather than the murder of Mr Litvinenko itself. At a press conference, a senior prosecutor said that one possible explanation was that while “packaging or transporting” the polonium before the meeting, Mr Kovtun had been “sloppy” and accidentally touched it.
However, the German authorities said the evidence did not necessarily mean that Mr Kovtun had carried a polonium source with him from Moscow to London via Hamburg in order to poison Mr Litvinenko. He may simply have been contaminated by the material and carried traces with him.
…
German state prosecutor Martin Köhnke said an investigation had been launched on the suspicion that Mr Kovtun had been in “illegal contact with radioactive substances”. But it was unclear whether he had swallowed the polonium or merely touched it.
“One possibility is that he came into contact with polonium while transporting or packaging it in Moscow. But we can’t say at this point whether he is a victim or a suspect.”
Since Lugovoi had departed London for Moscow around the time Kovtun was leaving it may be Lugovoi was the source of the contamination – or he brought the Polonium 210 from London to Moscow. It could be the contamination happened in Moscow or in London days before that. As I said in an earlier post, there is a possibility this material is flowing into Russia from London for Chechen use.
Major Update: More news out today regarding the first stop for Litvinenko that fateful day he went about his business, and it is – as I suspected – the Millenium Hotel.
A £1.50 BUS ticket proves that murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in a London hotel.
The ticket for a No 134 London bus was found in Litvinenko’s coat pocket after he was dosed with deadly polonium 210.
It was bought near his home in Muswell Hill, North London, from where he travelled to meetings in the West End on November 1.
Checks reveal that the bus he boarded has not been contaminated by radiation.
This, police say, almost certainly proves Litvinenko was poisoned at London’s Millennium Hotel where he drank tea that day with former colleagues Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi.
The hotel is the first place he is known to have visited after leaving the bus. Strong traces of polonium have been uncovered on a cup and saucer at the hotel.
The only question now is did he visit the hotel twice that day. If everyone recalls, Lugovoi and Kovtun said they had to go off to a meeting early in the day which is why the third Russian did not spend the day with those two. Also recall Litvinenko visited a security firm nearby as he and Lugovoi did everytime Lugovoi came into London and contamination traces were found in hotels. In fact, the last time the three men – Litvinenko, Lugovoi, Kovtun – were together was Oct 16th, at which time they went to Erinys, a security company in Grosvenor square. We have reporting that Erinys contacted authorities and notified them that Litvninko had visited that day, and the office was found to be contaminated. Scaramella also testified that Litvninenko had been at a meeting prior to their get together at the Sushi Bar.
It is not hard to believe Lugovoi and Kovtun would try and keep from authorities the earlier meeting with Litvinenko if it involved something illegal. So how do we know that Litvinenko did not go to the rooms of these men where the serious contamination occured, as they prepared to go to a meeting elsewhere. This makes sense because LItvinenkoi would then report back to Berezovsky at some point after he Scaramella meeting, before a final tag up at the Pine Bar. Now there are problems with this theory because the third Russian is now not sosure he ran into Litvinenko in the Pine Bar before the game. But Lugovoi’s son was supposed to have seen Litvinenko at this later, pre-game meeting. – end update
Just as the tea cup found in the Millenium Hotel is one critical clue which will shed light on whether the Litvinenko incident is an assassination attempt or a nuclear smuggling ring accident, the other contamination sites in the Hotel are just as important. And now we have another indication
Kovtun says he met Litvinenko only twice – on October 16 when Lugovoi introduced him to the political émigré and at the fatal meeting on November 1. Another man, Sokolenko, denies taking part in the November 1 meeting with Litvinenko, saying he flew to London to watch football. He admits, though, to greeting Litvinenko at the entrance of the Millennium Mayfair hotel.
This explains how traces of radiation have come to be found at the Emirates Stadium in London where the three Russians went to see football after meeting Litvinenko. Kovtun was there with polonium in his system. The poisoning of Kovtun makes the enigmatic case even more intricate. If he suffered too, Litvinenko was poisoned by someone else. However, one may surmise that Kovtun got poisoned by accident. British police says somebody dropped a capsule with polonium on the floor of the Mayfair hotel’s room which was presumably taken by one of Litvinenko’s FSB friends.
As with the tea cup, the indications are this was contact with a Polonium-210 metal or dust, not somthing with Polonium suspended or disolved into an acid-salt mixture. Again we see indications that something disasterous happened in a room (not the hotel bar). And there is no way to say for sure Litvinenko was not in this room earlier in the day. But it does fit a pattern of Lugovoi and associates coming to London, staying in hotels which later show PO-210 contamination in multiple rooms. In this case it seems one room showed a searing contamination level, like the tea cup. My guess is it would be consistent with an amount of PO-210 much higher than found in Litvinenko.
AJ those two kids are his ex wife’s by another person – they are not Kovton’s kids not that it matters much
Gotta Know — “Z Man” is Akhmed Zakayev, the Litvinenko family’s neighbor and fellow friend of billionaire Boris Berezovky.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Zakayev
Are we jumping to conclusions in the notion that the cup was damaged by the radiation? Could the glaze have already been damaged (cracked) and the poison seeped into the ceramic? I have seen cups with small cracks in the glaze before. Not sure I would use one now, though.
There’s gotta be a reason why Lugovoy is keeping mum about his condition and downplaying the condition of Kovton…and it’s not just that being contaminated with polonium is not good for business. As I understand it there are 24 hour urine tests that will tell if the person has PO in their system and after that there are tests that will show whether a person’s organ’s are affected like blood tests for the liver and kidney function etc. and presumably a later bone marrow test will show what’s going on with the blood cells. …so Lugovoy already KNOWS what his general condition is – if he’s clean why not tell the world and if he’s infected what difference does it make now…just wondering
very good point CP – re the cup
If he is trying to cooperate, he might not be telling any more than the investigators want him to tell.
“Lugovoy is probably turning on Berezovsky as we speak.”
AJ, if that is the case, and he’s telling the truth, then you’re saying that Berezovsky supplied the polonium 210 to Lugovoi or Kovtun from London?
BBC: German officials have confirmed that Dmitry Kovtun’s ex-wife, partner and two children have been contaminated with the radioactive substance.
Not sure about this – will look in German press
CP,
You tell me? The cup is obviously very ‘hot’ because it stands out from the other dishes and went through a month of use. To me that means a significant ‘imprint’ of one kind or another. A liquid with Polonium suspended in it would not leave anymore of an ‘imprint’ than the dishwasher waterw would have. Alpha radiation still ony travels few centimeters, so only the material present in the few centimeters of liquid would leave the imprint.
Now if a particulate form was placed in the cup, and it burned a spot or something into the cup, that would be different. And it could leave sufficient Polonium in the cup so that when it hit the dishwasher it spread out and contaminated the inside surface and other dishes. It would seem the dishwasher’s internals have something that could bind the Polonium (plastic?) so it would not rinse out of the cavity. The other dishes simply showed a residual of some kind.
I keep seeing the only way for the one cup to show a significant difference from other cups is it held the much more active metal form of Polonium. The ‘mixing bowl’ if you will.
ok that BBC article is taken I think from Bild – a kind of Daily Mirror – the headline there is:
Auch seine Ex-Frau (31) sowie deren zwei kleine Kinder (1 und 3 Jahre) und ihr Lebensgefährte (27) sind verstrahlt!
verstrahlt= radioactive/contaminated
I think he is telling the world he is well becuase if the russians are saying he is ill and cannot be questioned but he is innocent he would want people to know he is well and wants to be questioned. (I hope his hospital is not a victim of arson)
I think he may keep his medical details to himself and his Lawyer
Mariposa,
Yes. I am saying the Polonium 210 was coming in from someplace else (Iran) to London where it was brought together at these hotels where Lugovoi would collect up the individual shipments and take them their final step to Russia. Berezovsky would be behind ‘arming’ the Chechens so he could topple Putin. He has said this is his plan.
So when Lugovoi left London on Oct 17th he went to London with a shipment and met with Kovtun who got contaminated (this being the second of three rounds of smuggling). Kovtun leaves Moscow and goes to Hamburg, unknowingly trailing Polonium 210 residue. He then goes to London to meet Lugovoi and Litvinenko.
It is at this third hotel that the terrible accident takes place in the hotel room. Litvinenko is not only contaminated, but he ingests the material. He and Lugovoi and Kovtun go to Erinys or wherever to have their meeting (may be planning for the next round of shipments coming into London). Then Litvinenko meets Scaramella, goes to see Berezovsky (to c0nfirm plans for the next round) and then heads back to the Millenium Hotel before going home.
AJStrata
Not sure if the Germans are trying to make the British look bad with their fancy equipment or they are talking about ‘material’ not just contamination.
For what it’s worth Die Welt (more respectable than Bild) is reporting that the 4 are only lightly contaminated with levels just outside of the normal range and that futher tests will be done to see if they are seriously contaminated including the 24 hour urine test etc..
http://www.welt.de/data/2006/12/11/1142429.html
AJ, good theory overall.
Assuming press reports are correct that the polonium 210 was manufactured in Russia, how did it get to Iran before it was in London?
Or are you declaring all reports that the polonium 210 is Russian are wrong?
Unless someone can prove otherwise, I am inclined to believe the cup was hot because the PO seeped into it thru a crazing or even erosion in the glaze, and that crazing or erosion may have occurred thru normal usage, not necessarily because of the PO.
“the cup was hot because the PO seeped into it thru a crazing or even erosion in the glaze”
That also sounds more logical to me. It’s not unusual for contaminants to enter ceramics through breaks in glazes, either.
I also believe the widespread reports from British sources that the polonium 210 is of Russian manufacture.
I know that PO is not bacteria and behaves differently..but restauranteurs and hoteliers can be closed down for using crazed or cracked dinnerware because it is known that bacteria can enter the pottery that way and remain there after washing, and I see no reason why that might not also be true of PO.
Could a capsule hold polonium? I would think it would eat the capsule up.
I don’t know why the bus ticket is so important except to show that Litvinenko had an early meeting on the west end as did Kovtun and Lugoivoi. After all, the street cameras showed that he bought a newspaper a 12:00 and was not contaminated. Perhaps the early meeting was at Erinys (or maybe Erinys was a decoy for where they really went) and he met Lugovoi and Kovtun there and picked up the polonium. Then they separated (didn’t want to be seen together on the street because of the cameras) and met again at the Millenium hotel for tea (could have taken the cup up to the room or really the cup could have been a plant – I find it hard to believe that the staff didn’t notice that the cup was flawed after all this time and just kept serving it). They then went up to the room to do whatever and the accident occurred. My contention is they opened the container and the polonium spewed out and Litvinenko was holding it and got the worse contamination and that the other two handled it while getting the stuff into another container. I think this accident and new container happened after tea in the Pine bar and before the sushi bar because Litvinenko was contaminated by the time he went to the sushi bar. There was radiation on the table where he sat. I think Scaramella got more than the papers are saying but less than what he said. Litvinenko then went to Bereszovsky’s office to collect the money and on to Erinys to pay them off and another place on Grosvenor Square who could have been the supplier also. Then to the Millenium bar to pay off Lugoivoi and Kovtun. None of them realizing that they had been contaminated so badly (evidently no one had taken a shower). I think Litvinenko left the window between 12 and 3 blank because it could not stand the light of day. I think he kept quiet because Bereszovsky promised to take care of his family if he should die but I don’t think he thought he would really die. I think the polonium came from Iran and was in pure form and highly dangerous and was meant for a dirty bomb either in London but most likely in Russia. Bereszovsky was planning a coup and this might have been his weapon.
I can see Putin doing an assassination of this type in Russia but not in England. He could control evidence in Russia but has no control over anything in England. I’m certainly not saying he is not capable of any of this because it has been shown that he is. I just don’t feel that this particular incident was done by him.
There are no good guys in this caper. Has anyone ever heard of an ex-KGB agent being a good guy? I have no sympathy for any of them. I just want to know where the polonium is now and what the buyers plan to do with it. The where from could be a major problem also.