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.
Litvinenko had JUST become a British citizen. There are indications –as the Times reported–of an earlier unsuccessful attempt–perhaps just days before he was made a citizen. Just adding that to the mix.
Nada will happen.
From Wikipedia:
“Thallium was once an effective murder weapon before its effects became understood and an antidote (prussian blue) discovered.”
The Russians could well have used Ricin for this. There would have been nothing the doctors could have done, he would be just as dead, there would be no danger to the bystanders.
Polonium only makes sense when you want it to be undiscovered and in this case it is obvious that whoever did it wanted polonium to be discovered and made sure a tail of it to Moscow was laid. Sophamoric to say the least.
Say what you will, Clarice, but I say your reaction is exactly what was intended out of all of this. I am not buying it.
No, Clarice is right. What do you suppose NATO could do, CP?
This will never track all the way home. The only thing revealed is that the Kremlin’s “elite” hit squads are on par with the Sopranos goons.
“Nada will happen”
Just exactly how do you claim to know that? If a foreign government kills your citizens and poisons your hotels a government is left with no choice but to respond. If the British do nothing, it will bring down THEIR government, notwithstanding whatever happens in Russia.
I guess I don’t believe you understand the gravity of one country killing the citizens of another on its own soil. Crime is one thing, but a foreign government killing your people is war.
Mariposa, thank you for that German report.It is interesting. Dated the 11th it says the Germans have no idea of Kovtun’s whereabouts or the state of his health; there are three (apparently residences) where they are checking for PO–I take it that is his apt, his ex-wife’s and his M-I-L’s. (Was he moving around for some reason?)
And PO in both the cares he was a passenger in including the car he rode to the airport on on Nov 1.
I don’t believe they will do anything because I believe the culprits will be found. If it does turn out that the Russians did it … which would be the dumbest move ever in history … you would see a complete cutoff of all trade with the west, all arms reduction agreements probably go by the wayside, and a new buildup of military forces in Europe. Basically it would be back to the cold war.
If it turns out to be some foes of Boris or someone retaliating for Litvinenko’s attempts to blackmail someone, things will probably be smoothed over. If it is Boris himself behind it, I imagine he would be thrown to the dogs in Moscow. From the reporting I am reading on any site that follows Russian affairs (sites in the East and West) Boris appears to have no scruples and would assist the devil himself if it advanced his own position.
CP, we are already moving in that direction.
Too many people have been murdered. Too many people are terrified to stay in Russia.
You’re welcome, Clarice. I thought it was interesting too.
That’s the story about Boris and Litvinenko that the Kremlin’s been selling, at any rate.
Another interesting read:
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=4341&pubType=RusSov
Several european countries are dependent upon russian gas – the UK will be dependent in the not too distant future.
Tempester, that’s what I believe all of this… murder and mayhem… has been about.
I also believe the reports that Putin is positioning himself to take the helm at Gazprom.
Niters.
So you are saying it is okay to let oil companies kill your kids because you need the fuel?
I don’t know why it bothers me so much that anyone would actually believe that Russia would kill Litvinenko. Sure it makes a good story, and it certainly is melodramatic, but please.
This was either the work of serious amateurs or some serious bungling by more than one person at the same time. Sure, I understand that it fits some people’s vision of how they believe things to be but looked at from a clinical perspective, it would be moronic for Russia to have done such a thing to begin with and add insult to injury to do it in this fashion.
It would be stupidity wrapped around incompetence inside a folly. In other words, there is no way.
Even a scenario such as:
Litvinenko becomes despond ant because he needs money and none is coming in, uses what remains to purchase some polonium on the black market, contaminates the Russians with it to make it look like a hit and then commits suicide making it look like he was assassinated. So he goes down in history as some martyr and causes more problems for Putin in death than he could ever cause in life …
Is more likely than the Russians doing this. If the Russians did this there would be no trail, there would be no teacup, there would be no contamination of hotels, cars, planes, offices, homes, children, etc. There would be only a dead man as in every other case where they have killed someone. And I can’t recall them killing a foreign national in their own country in my lifetime. And it doesn’t matter when he got his citizenship. They could have hit him months or years ago before he got his citizenship.
Interesting to me:
Scotland yard says it wants to talk to the guy who gave Scaramella the hit list and the guy disappears, even though he had police protection in France. Sounds to me like he didn’t want to talk to Scotland Yard. Wonder why that would be? Oh, and he is a friend of Boris’
That seems like a good thing to look into, his disappearance is convenient. Accidents rarely happen, and when they do, they’re usually not this convenient.
I thought the Polizeipresse release was very telling. They do not even know if Kovtun came back to Hamburg after the London trip. That tells us that his track back from London to Moscow is unknown. Where did he go?
Thanks for the Po-info, CP. However, it seems to me that they would have had to have some solid traces of thallium, or some other indication, in order to assume that was the cause of his illness. It certainly is an indication that Litvinenko didn’t know what killed him (or we are being misinformed of course), because if he had told them, they would have had the bone marrow donor ready by the time he needed it, and they only released the info about the Po right before his death.
I’m still confused about whether Lugovoi and Kovtun really are contaminated. They looked incredibly well (especially Lugovoi) on 11/24 and Kovtun appears to have shaved his hair rather than lost it.
Note: 8 Swedes called for Po-checks: http://www.expressen.se/index.jsp?a=790478
Thinking that most of you probably don’t know Swedish, I’ll extract some tidbits from this, but please note that Expressen sometimes gets things wrong:
– The Swedish crisis preparation unit, on the orders of Scotland Yard, has sought out the Swedes to get them to the hospital immediately. They are now being tested for Po-contamination. Six Swedes who visited the Pine Bar and a couple who visited Shaftesbury Hotel by Picadilly. They got this note on Monday the 11th. Po had been found in the Shaftesbury hotel room where the couple had been staying.
A German family who stayed in this room before this couple have become sick.
It is not believed that they are at risk for getting sick, but they have to be checked.
Here’s a link which describes this better in English: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1232725.php/Swedish_visitors_at_London_hotel_tested_in_Litvinenko_case
Also, statement from Condoleezza Rice:
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n101424
here’s lugovoy’s take on the timeline:
However, Andrei Lugovi, who met Mr Litvinekno on the day, says he believes the poisoning happened on October 16th at the offices of a London security firm.
Mr Lugovi says this is the only way to explain traces of Polonium-210 found at the company’s offices.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/world/europe/article2070766.ece
The treatment for thalium is Russian Blue – why were Litvinenko and his wife discussing bone marrow transplants BEFORE the hospital knew it was Polonium?