Dec 13 2006
New Clues Emerge In Litvinenko Incident
Two new clues have emerged in the puzzle that is the Litvinenko incident. There are now some vague reports of another Russian of interest associated with Kovtun and his trip to Hamburg from Moscow in October (before Litvinenko fell ill):
An unnamed Russian businessman who flew from Moscow to Hamburg on October 28 with Mr Kovtun is also being sought. Police believe this flight was used to transport polonium-210 into Europe.
There is also another hotel that has tested positive for Polonium-210, which again bolsters the idea this was some sort of large smuggling ring verses some targeted assassination:
In addition, a Swedish couple that had stayed at the Shaftesbury Hotel near Picadilly were Tuesday tested at the oncology unit at Lund University Hospital in southern Sweden, the Stockholm daily Expressen reported.
The hotel room the couple had stayed in apparently had traces of polonium.
Seems like an awefully large group of people for an assassination someone wanted to look like an accident.
Also today, Dmitry Kovtun speaks out and claims Litvinenko was the one who contaminated him, and that it happened on Oct 16-18. This is possible and plausible since Polonium 210 was found at hotels associated with Lugovoi’s visit to London and meetings with Litvinenko. We also have, someplace back in my posts on this subject, I believe Lugovoi’s statement that Litvinenko told him he had poisoned himself before Nov 1st. While it is hard to put much stock in Lugovoi’s word by itself, I find it worth considering since he seems to be a cooperating witness, possibly under a plea agreement.
Update: Both Lugovoi and Kovtun are pointing to Oct 16-18th as the logical (as we all know) first time for Polonium 210 contamination for Litvinenko:
Andrei Lugovoi, a security agent-turned-businessman who met with Litvinenko at a London hotel on Nov. 1, the day Litvinenko suspected he was poisoned, said in an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid that he and Litvinenko were poisoned on Oct. 16.
“Who told you that the contamination took place on Nov. 1? It took place much earlier, on Oct. 16,” Lugovoi was quoted as saying by the paper. Lugovoi is himself undergoing radiation checks in a Moscow clinic.
Litvinenko, 43, a former Russian agent and a Kremlin critic, died Nov. 23 of poisoning from polonium-210.
Lugovoi supported his claim by saying that he and Litvinenko visited a London-based security firm where traces of polonium were later found only in mid-October, but did not go there on Nov. 1, meaning that the contamination couldn’t have taken place on that day.
While Lugovoi is being a bit disingenuous with this logic due to the massive radiation signatures at the Millenium Hotel Room and bar, he is being more accurate than the reporting coming out of the UK media – which has been obsessed with the assassination theory. It should be noted though, that Litvinenko’s final dosage could have been the result of a number of contacts with Polonium-210 which was not being handled properly. He could have been building up his poison levels over many weeks, and received a final larger dose on Nov 1. But I am only pointing this out to show there are lots of reasonable scenarios based on what is known to date. The media has jumped the gun – like usual.
Mariposa – gute frage (good question) as the Germans would say
ROFLOL copydude – will get busy emailing him right now
Think Trepashkin might have a blog at MSN spaces? This would all make life easier 🙂
“So it appears we have had a lot of hotels being tested. ”
Yes, that information came out in reports released about the same time the stadium was tested, too.
December 6th was also the day that Scotland Yard announced that this was now considered a “murder investigation,” though I’m not implying any coincidence with these particular events. I just wonder if there was any significance.
After a short review of German papers today – I agree CP the Germans are being much more openminded about the investigation and in fact they are talking a lot about smuggling
copydude, that’s hilarious. Yes, it would!
Lugovoi said he arrived at his conclusion after polonium was found at the offices of a London security firm.
“We visited that firm only one time – October 16. That means we were poisoned during that trip (to London, on October 14-16),” he added.
Raw Storyhttp://rawstory.com/news/2006/Changing_dateline_adds_German_dreac_12132006.html
“But all the various phone interviews with the press from the clinic with Kovtun and Lugovoi have bothered me. How do they know they’re even speaking with Kovtun or Lugovoi?”
Lets not waste energy evolving unlikely plots until more word is released.
I’m glad the German team is covering the smuggling angle because that is how the case relates to their country, at least insofar as we’ve been told. No one died on their soil, so it’s not a murder investigation to them.
Yeah, the problem with that kind of contamination is that you can’t tell if Lugovoi’s hotel was contaminated before or after that meeting. And we don’t know where else Litvinenko went that day so we can’t look for contamination and we already know his home was contaminated at a later date.
I will bet there is a CCTV camera pointed at every single “security firm” in the UK these days, though.
“Lets not waste energy evolving unlikely plots until more word is released.
CP, same to to you, buddy. I raised a question — one that’s not all that unlikely — except in your self-glorified opinion.
Speaking of security firms, didn’t they all meet with more firms than Erinys?
yes RISC – and this firm has something to do with that Russian and the Yukos (sp?) oil thing
re the alleged phone interview with der spiegel by Kovton – I think the Germans are raising this issue because they are not sure (or know more than we do) of the health of Kovton – time will tell I guess
ok guys headline in Berliner Zeitung:
Spy-killing polonium-210 cost $25 million
BERLIN, Dec. 13 (UPI) — German investigators say the radioactive polonium-210 used to kill a former Russian spy in London last month would have cost $25 million on the black market.
The Berliner Zeitung quoted a police source Wednesday as saying police were investigating the possibility some of Alexander Litvinenko’s business activities involved the illegal smuggling of nuclear materials.
Mariposa, to assume they are not talking to the real people would be a bit farfetched. It would mean journalists would never figure that out at any point in the future. And if they are using “voice impersonators” it would mean that Russia must have had these people ready, trained, and waiting to play that role. That means they would have had to have anticipated that scenario weeks or months ago.
Not very likely and potentially causing great damage if discovered.
In other words, the logistics of actually doing that would seem a bit extreme.
In passing – it was reported they met with three firms – Erinys, Risc and Triton . . .
By the way, on the stictch-up Putin front . . .
There’s a lot of people mad at Putin at the moment. Besides the emigres and the Chechens.
The Poles have a meat ban and an energy problem. And port access denied via Kaliningrad. Their Odessa-Polk pipeline project’s just been canned too. Sprats from Riga are banned. Fish from Estonia, banned. Wine from Moldova and Georgia – plus other sanctions on Georgia.
There’s also a delivery ‘problem’ with oil to the refinery in Lithuania – which it wouldn’t sell to Lukoil.
Shell is about to lose an interest in Sakhalin. Licenses on Hambro’s goldmines are being revoked as we speak . . .
He has been making enemies left and right . . . not to mention being friendly with Iran.
CP, I don’t find that question farfetched for Russia, especially given the weird Der Spiegel interview in the sauna. I also don’t find it taht scenario have to be planned far in advance or well thought out; in fact, it sounds more like very inept damage control IF it happened. Which I don’t claim it did.
As I said, I simply raised the question because it occured to me in relation to a German news article Lizarde brought in, that’s all. We all raise questions here. It’s the give and take nature of this sort of discussion. If you don’t like mine, then don’t waste time on it. I wasn’t, not until you felt the need to dress me down for it.
Enough said about it, though, and sorry to the others if I wasted your time.
25 MILLION US
one more time in case the discussion was too heated and everybody missed it:
BERLIN, Dec. 13 (UPI) — German investigators say the radioactive polonium-210 used to kill a former Russian spy in London last month would have cost $25 million on the black market.
Questions for Smugglers Gulch:
1) Who has verified the amount of PO 210 at point A, which would be the starting point of the smuggling route?
2) Who has verfied the amount of PO 210 from starting point A and point B – Litvinenko poisoning?
3) Who has verified that the amount of PO 210 originally smuggled, the amount Sahsa was given was not the full amount stolen, and therefore there remains a portion of PO 210 that needs to be found?
I’ve seen numerous posts wondering where the “remaining PO 210” is, and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that there was a specific beginning amount, a poisoning amount and a leftover amount.
And again – there was smuggling involved in the assassination of Litvinenko. The assassin/s smuggled the product into the UK, the assassin/s kept smuggling the product in and around the UK up and until the point they dropped a PO bomb on Sasha.
Smuggling is the illegal import or export of a product. The PO 210 was an illegal product – so it is absolutely correct that smuggling occurred in this event.
The only thing law enforcement needs to do is find out if the smuggling was for profit or murder. It’s one or the other, no gray areas.
As Clarice has pointed out the Kremlin has a pattern of Chechnyan sympathizers and Putin critics being murdered, and it is not sporadic, it is systematic. Many links in the previous thread bore that out. And I find it curious that Kovtun and Lugovoi have found sanctuary in Russia.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Sasha had a previous pattern of criminal activity, and no links to smuggling. But he has one thing in common with vocal Putin critics and Chechnyan supporters – he’s dead. The murder took place on UK soil to hammer home the fact that be it in Russia or elsewhere – the long arm of the Kremlin reaches very far.