Dec 12 2006
Litvinenko Dosage Was Massive
There is an article out today which helps put the dosage of Polonium 210 into perpsective, and a history lesson which would dictate the Litvinenko incident was not an assassination. It is the only recorded death by Polonium 210, and clearly demontrates Polonium is not a weapon of assassination:
A low-dose exposure was blamed for causing the death of Irene Joliot-Curie, the daughter of Marie Curie, who first isolated polonium.
Irene died in 1956 of leukemia caused by accidental exposure when a sealed capsule of the metal exploded on her laboratory bench. Polonium’s alpha rays damage DNA, although in Irene’s case they took more than 10 years to do their deadly work.
Litvinenko passed away much more quickly. On Nov. 23, the 43-year-old died in a London hospital from the intense radiation polonium emits, having ingested it sometime in late October. Even though the dose of poison was tiny — maybe no more than the weight of a speck of dust — it was deadly.
…
The maximum safe body burden of polonium is only 7 picograms (7 trillionth of a gram). It appears that Litvinenko was given something like a milligram (a thousandth of a gram), which is a billion times the safe level. Polonium-210 is regarded as one of the most dangerous substances known because it ejects alpha particles.
The history shows ten years before the first accidental exposure to what must have been a large amount of Polonium dust took its victim. True, the Curie’s were scientists and they took precautions. But an assassin would have to consider this example a poor result. The assassin theory has mutiple conflicting assumptions. First the assassin is sophisticated so he/she selects this exotic weapon. Then it turns out they know little about the weapon and the trail it leaves:
Whoever the assassin was, he or she had some method of concealing the poison before it was given to Litvinenko. The hidden poison would be undetectable because this isotope emits almost no telltale gamma rays. However, polonium has a tendency to leak from containers. This probably explains why traces have been found in five airliners, particularly those used for flights to Moscow. (Passengers in those aircraft were not at risk.)
Where Litvinenko was poisoned is still not known. But wherever he went after he was poisoned, he left traces of polonium, including his home in the north London suburb of Muswell Hill, a sushi restaurant near Piccadilly Circus where he dined with a friend, a luxury hotel where he met two unidentified Russians, and the home of Russian billionaire exile Boris Berezovsky. His room in the hospital was the most contaminated.
So was this a smart assassin? Apparently not. But why hire a low brow (and low budget) assassin to deliver a poison which costs tens of millions of dollars? That makes no sense either. Polonium 210 is useful as a weapon. Very useful. But that use has nothing to do with poison pills in tea. That is not an effective use of Polonium 210. Its role in a nuclear device or dirty bomb is much more deadly and cost effective. Now, you don’t need to tell a smuggler exactly what they are smuggling when you want to transport contraband. And smugglers might not think or even know about the trail Polonium 210 can leave. If I was in on the smuggling and then took ill, I would spend some serious time negotiating an air tight role as a whistle blower to get as light a sentence as possible in any prosecutions. The radiation poisoning would be punishment enough in many people’s minds.
On a slightly separate topic I would expect people involved in a smuggling ring that went bust like the Litvinenko incident might have to start running for cover. And that is apparently what we see.
Paris. A key witness in Litvinenko case,
Andrey[Evgeny; ajstrata] Limarev, has disappeared from his home in the French Alps, the Echo of Moscow Radio reported citing a statement of News Ru. Limarev is a former Federal Security Service agent and a colleague of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned recently in London. Some time ago, Limarev accused a former agent of the Federal Security Service, of Litvinenko’s death. Limarev told the British press that he would be the next victim. A day later, he went missing.
l which will be twisted by those trying to divert attention from themselves as some sort of act by Putin. Clearly someone is trying to hide something and some form of cleaning up is taking place.
Major Update: I can confidentally predict Lugovoi has signed a plea agreement in this matter:
Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoy, a presumed key witness in the case on the death in London of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, has flatly dismissed media reports alleging that Russian and British investigators repeatedly interrogated him on Tuesday.
“There have not been any investigatory actions today. I have only signed a protocol on not divulging preliminary investigation secrecy, and the signing of a protocol is not, as it is known, an investigatory action,†he told ITAR-TASS.
Berezovsky and Goldfarb and Zakayev must be getting pretty concerned about now. They do seem awefully eager to please all of a sudden. It is not good to pollute the home of someone who has given you shelter.
BTW, here is an interview of Lugovoi in Der Spiegel from a while back which is interesting. I have meetings today but will try to drop in and blog when I can. Update: This is fascinating reading and I hope I can join the debate later today, but one thing that should be noted about Polonium 210 poisoning is it can happen over time. If a person repeatedly visits a location where Polonium 210 is being handled one can build up the toxin to the point it becomes deadly. I only note that because Lugovoi and Kovtun stated Litvinenko was claiming to be poisoned as early as Oct 16th. I would wager this smuggling effort, if it is one, went on for months and involved many more carriers than we are seeing reported now.
Axis reports:
A Russian whose name has been linked to a London hotel meeting with poisoned Alexander Litvinenko has told the BBC he was not present.
Vyacheslav Sokolenko, reported to be the “third man” at the 1 November meeting, said he was staying at the hotel but never met Litvinenko. His friend, former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy, did meet the ex-spy and is to be questioned by Russian prosecutors.
According to reports, there were two others present at the meeting.
Sokolenko said in an interview with BBC Moscow that he was not one of them, and that he had travelled to London with Lugovoy and his family purely to see a football match between CSKA Moscow and Arsenal. “Andrei [Lugovoy] and I had been planning it for a long time,” he said. “I’m a huge fan of the CSKA football team, I’ve travelled a lot with them – to Lisbon, Paris.â€It’s not very pleasant, you go off to watch football and then you find yourself in a situation like this.”
He said that he had undergone medical tests but “they didn’t find anything and there couldn’t be anything”. He added that no-one from Scotland Yard or the Russian prosecutor’s office had asked to see him, but stressed he was fully prepared to talk to them even though he had little to say. “I’m not interesting – there’s nothing for me to talk about apart from the football.”
Lugovoy, who adamantly denies poisoning Litvinenko, told the Russian daily Kommersant that he had met the former spy at about 1600 GMT November 1 in a bar at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel. Sokolenko said on that day he went on an excursion with Lugovoy’s family.
He also says he arrived back at the hotel at 5pm on the 1st and met Litvinenko at the entrance, apparently as Litvinenko was leaving.
That would tend to support multiple meetings at the hotel. One in the morning and one in the evening. Bus ticket in Litvinenko’s pocket would be consistant with a morning visit.
Thanks, CP
This gives a little more info, but not much. I had wondered if he was the “Vladimir” that Litvinenko said pressed him into having a cup of tea in the Pine Bar.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2495179_2,00.html
A third Russian businessman, Vyacheslav Sokolenko, told The Times yesterday that he had no involvement with Litvinenko. The men had finished their meeting by the time he came to the hotel lobby after a sightseeing tour.
“I don’t know Litvinenko, I had never met him. If I spoke to him, it was only to say hello like any civilised person,†said Mr Sokolenko, a former Kremlin security guard. “I had no business in London. I hadn’t been there for 11 years. I was just there to see the match because I’m really a big CSKA fan.â€
I agree. I think there were two visits to the Millennium, too, which is where all the confusion originates in the Nov. 1 timeline.
So we have a mysterious third man at the bar who has not been identified. We have the flight to Germany where some unidentified person who apparently flew with Kovtun and according to one source is suspected of possibly providing the polonium is being looked for.
Certainly appears that there is a suspect at large who is being searched for.
Oh, and the name the Germans have given this investigation is apparently “The Third Man”.
Yes, I think Sokolenko is not under suspicion.
If Kovtun and Lugovoy were contaminated by a third man, it would fit into the original Times scenario–smugglers (I do not think they were L or K who I think were following them perhaps for the KSB),some Russians following them and an assassin.
I don’t believe the scenario indicated the smugglers were smuggling PO.I think the smugglers were buried in the crowd of Russians visiting for the soccer match.
But me memory could be wrong. And my assessment of K and L could be, too.
I do think the 3d man was the assassin.
And I still don’t believe it was assassination. I do believe it was set up to LOOK like an assassination, though. I believe it was set up to look like Russia did it.
The only people that would benefit from an assassination of Litvinenko in this manner are the Chechens and anti-Putin forces. The Chechens, Boris, or both.
I believe it was a murder to cover up something else.
Or a murder designed to purposely cause problems for Putin.
In other words, at this point, Litvinenko was probably more valuable being a “victim” of Putin than anything he might do while living.
Put another way, Clarice, I don’t think Russia would have done it because it would cause exactly the same reaction in many people that it seems to have caused with you.
Even worse if you were British. If it were to turn out that Putin did this, it would probably result in a NATO response … sanctions of some sort at the very least. I don’t see how that would help Putin or Russia in any way.
I don’t see any sanctions. I don’t see any conclusive result.. That’s the way it goes.
At best we will have a report indicating what they did find and raising questions.
As with all the other mysterious poisonings of enemies of Putin and his predeccessors.
I think recent events with the ambassador and some British companies is showing that the UK has no power to influence Russia
at all
Hamburg Police press release on Kovtun
http://www.presseportal.de/polizeipresse/p_story.htx?nr=913605
The British would be forced to do something. Can you imagine if we discovered some foreign government was behind the anthrax attack after 9/11? This is kindof the same thing because right now the UK doesn’t know how much of this stuff is around, there are several contaminated people, one citizen dead, two foreigners who had recently been in their country possibly in bad shape …
They will be left with no choice but to respond of the Russians did it. They will really have no choice. They would have to cut off pretty much all economic contact. That is why I don’t believe the Russians did it. This only benefits the Putin’s enemies. There is absolutely no up side to this at all for Putin. Litvinenko was a pain in the rump, but that is about all. Not worth what would be regarded as an attack on a NATO country.
Bulgarians murdered a defector, Marky, on British soil in 1978 with ricin. Iraqi dissidents were poisoned with thallium in the 1980s in London. That’s bioterrorism, too, but nothing was done.
Nothing we know of, anyway.
Yes, that man was not a British citizen and it placed no British citizens in danger.
Same with the Iraqi dissidents.
I do wonder whether perpetraters want Russia to fall out with the international community. when people were talking about retires kgb
it made me think of a group of men sitting round talking about the good old days. those people would had contempt for those who became billionairs in the yeltsin years (gaidar’s economics had an influence here) and they would like to reverse the progress of democracy. Look at what is happening to any opposition groups in Russia today.
Neither ricin nor thallium are radioactive nor can they cause contamination of others. Neither one of those substances are as dangerous to the public health. In this case, one British citizen is dead, several others are probably at risk of developing cancer. Neither ricin or thallium as used would cause those problems. Thallium has been used as a pesticide for a long time though it may not be these days because of its popularity as a poison in murders not having anything to do with foreign skullduggery. It has been a favorite poison of more garden variety murders.