Dec 13 2006

Some Litvinenko Thoughts

The news on Litvinenko’s death and the Polonium-210 trail has succumbed to the moder Ripper news, so obviously something very quiet is being done behind the scenes or the trail is growing cold. I think it is the former because this quick response by the Germans in response to some possible evidence that Kovtun made a phone call from Berlin during his period in Germany between Moscow and his trip to meet Lugovoi and Litvinenko in London.

I meant to note I find the constantly shifting stories by Lugovoi and Kovtun to be a clear sign they new full well they have been in contact with radiactive material. The tanning salon excuse is just pathetic. I also find their pointing to Oct 16th as possible contamination point telling as well. They knew that their illnesses were due to Polonium 210, but they only realized their problem after Litvinenko fell ill and died. Up until they could not hide the truth anymore (i.e., they needed medical attention) they tried to divert suspicion using one lame excuse after another. But they knew it was Polonium 210.

Add this the fact Berezovsky’s mouthpiece Goldfarb went out of his way to dismiss any idea that Lugovoi and Kovtun could have been involved in the assassination effort and one can see he too was trying to divert attention from them as culprits in Litvinenko’s death. When in reality they represented the best lead to Putin and Russia as part of an assassination effort. Why would Berezovsky/Goldfarb go out of there way to publically vouch for the best supporting evidence of a Russian assassination plot to ever surface? Diversion. Only when it became clearly obvious that Lugovoi was ill did Goldfarb go silent again.

Finally, the delay in questioning Lugovoi could easily be seen as negotiations for a plea agreement. Lugovoi has been giving the public perception he is working for investigators on this case, and investigators are not out denying anything. We still have this mysterious fourth contaminated hotel out there, and we have police backing away from the poisoned tea cup theory. I would not be surprised if within a few days we see some sweeping actions by authorites. Then again, I would not be surprised to see nothing new happening for days on end as well. My latest musings for all to rip apart at their leisure!

210 responses so far

210 Responses to “Some Litvinenko Thoughts”

  1. crosspatch says:

    Polonium poisoning isn’t “contagious”.

  2. mariposa says:

    My point is that perhaps you need to read more carefully, too. Both reports say the same thing, but in different words, which is typical — different writers, different levels of scientific knowledge, different languages altogether, as well as some misinformation and disinformation is out there.

    By the way, search Google news for: and you get 342 cup stories, not just one.

    Yes, different people find and see different things. That’s why it’s crucial that law enforcement views this from as many perspectives as they can.

    We’re all getting bogged down and edgey today.

  3. mariposa says:

    In previous post search for:
    “millennium hotel” cup

  4. crosspatch says:

    Clarice, it doesn’t matter if anyone else ingested lethal quanties of polonium, it is quite clear from the contamination patterns that Kovtun and Lugovoi both have it in their bodies and were leaving traces from body fluids (urine and sweat) meaning they had not only had external contact with it but had also ingested it which would probably make sense if they had it on their hands and their homes were contaminated with it.

  5. crosspatch says:

    Yes, Mariposa and none of the newer stories on the cup mention any huge amount of contamination on it and still say it was “being tested”.

  6. crosspatch says:

    My current scenarios in order of likelyhood:

    1. Smuggling ring contaminates itself, kills Litvinenko to justify existance of polonium.

    2. Smuggling ring contaminates itself, Litvinenko builds up internal dose of contamination over time until it finally kills him.

    3. Boris has Litvinenko bumped off with trail pointing to Moscow to cause further global agitation against Putin.

    4. Litvinenko tries to make himself sick to get attention and blame Putin but overdoses himself.

    5. Litvinenko commits suicide but contaminates security guys making it look like Russia did it.

    6. Blackmail target has Litvinenko killed by his own pals.

    7. Putin decides to commit political suicide and sends bungling team of assassins to spread polonium all over europe pointing back to Moscow to kill British citizen who is at most a minor irritation and wannabe mobster (trying his hand at blackmailing) with no resources.

  7. wiley says:

    If you remove the overzealous exaggeration & naivete, you might have a winner in #7.

  8. crosspatch says:

    I honestly don’t believe so, Wiley. But we will know for sure at some point and nothing we type here is going to make it be one way or the other.

  9. mariposa says:

    Tempester, thanks. For what it’s worth, I do believe that Litvinenko’s name was on the hit list that Limarev sent Scaramella, the one that Zakayev is speaking of in the BBC interview you cited. I think I read a quote from Limarev today saying he never expected his name to be revealed. Now he’s keeping his head down because he’s scared — and so he changed his story.

  10. mariposa says:

    I’m just starting what appears so far to be a decent round-up of all the facts, names, theories:

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-13-poisoned-spy-cover_x.htm

  11. crosspatch says:

    Concerning the speculation if Lugovoi and Kovtun are really sick:

    If Lugovoi wasn’t really sick, believe me, he would be saying so. There is no advantage to pretending to be sick if he isn’t. We already know he has polonium in him from his contamination trail. If he is or isn’t ill from it doesn’t matter.

    Same goes for Kotvun. No advantage either way. If he isn’t ill, then he just isn’t ill. We already know he is contaminated internally from the trail he left in Germany. Whether he is ill or not from it doesn’t matter.

    Lugovoi came up and became powerful through connections with Boris. He is Boris’ man, not Putin’s. Neither of them can deny contact with polonium at this point, that much has been pretty clearly established and Kotvun is shown to be shedding external polonium particles more than two weeks after he was last in London on the 16th of October.

    Putin assassinating Litvinenko would be like George Bush assassinating Joe Wilson. The assassination would do more damage than the person could do. Same in this case. There are enough people who believe Putin did it that the damage is done. Even if Scotland Yard proves someone else did it, there are going to be people who believe Putin did it and will refuse to believe anything else. Same if Wilson died under suspicious circumstances and the police proved that, say, Larry Johnson did it to make Bush look bad. There are many who wouldn’t believe that and would still think Bush did it. The assassination would itself do more damage than the target themself could ever do alive.

    There is no “up” side of this for Putin and I see no indication that the British believe he did it either.

  12. crosspatch says:

    Now here is something I will agree with wholeheartedly (from Austin Bay’s blog quoting a Time magazine piece):

    “The point is not whether Putin is responsible for these concrete murders. The point is that he is responsible for having created a system that is ruled by fear and violence.” Ryzhkov claims that the armed forces, Interior Ministry, FSB and those who have retired from them to join private security services “are running this country, own its economy and use violence and murder as habitual management techniques.” A U.S. businessman in Moscow seconds the argument. “

    While you in the press are obsessed by Politkovskaya and Litvinenko, you’ve missed that half a dozen major oil executives and another half-dozen major bankers have been murdered in the last few months.”

    http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1568482,00.html

  13. mariposa says:

    Clarice posted that days ago. And if you agree to the sentiment you quoted, then you are finally starting to get it. That’s why we talk about Yukos, all the people who have fled Russia.

    Putin has helped to create a sick regime.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,453671,00.html

    “The discovery of a radiation in Hamburg prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel to warn the Russian government that cases such as Litvinenko’s death and the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya risked damaging Russia’s image abroad. “This is not a good sign and it has to change,” Merkel told the German television station ARD in an interview due to be screened on Monday night.

    She called for close cooperation between the Russian and British authorities to solve the Litvinenko case and said Russian President Vladimir Putin had assured her he would assist in the investigation.

    “This whole series of cases in which people are losing their lives” was causing “a certain concern,” Merkel said.”

  14. crosspatch says:

    I have said all along I am no Putin fan. But I don’t think Putin had anything directly to do with this particular murder. This tread is about a specific murder investigation that I also believe involves long term smuggling of radioactive material.

    If we want to discuss Putin’s performance and the conditions inside Russia, that would be a different thread.

  15. tempester says:

    Good article mariposa, 2 points stand out for me.

    Putin seeking anoter term, possibly canging the constitution.

    did litvinenko know something that as yes to come to light?

  16. tempester says:

    Another man who met him at the end of October said he was awaiting documents tat he believed would name the killers of Anna P

  17. crosspatch says:

    Yeah, and if those guys had killed him, he would have been found with two bullets in the head behind the dumpster at McDonalds. No way they would have used polonium. By weight, polonium is more valuable than diamonds by far. I don’t believe his death is linked to the journalist’s death. They are just two deaths of (too) many deaths.

  18. tempester says:

    its about the progress of democracy in Russia – killing jounalists is anti that

  19. Carol_Herman says:

    Following the pattern of Chernobyl, this operation is “closed down” so it can be cleaned up.

    Missing pieces? You couldn’t DRINK what was in THAT tea cup!

    What was IN Scaramella’s Italian e-mail. What language was the email composed in? And, why bother? Just becaue it sent Litvenenko to Boris’ office? Maybe, the email was a note to the smugglers that they were stupid? Or? Someone’s wife was kan-noodling?

    On the other hand, IF there was a smuggling ring. To “halp” the muslems “build a suitcase bomb,” the IMAM who didn’t want to “honor” Litvenenko’s body. By placing the casket among the parisioners, MAY have already discovered “ill people” in some of the mosques. And, radiation poisoning wasn’t knew to the muslems in Londonstan?

    Too many assassins. But for stupidity? Par for the course.

    And, while Americans are used to seeing “Masters of Spin,” what’s putin got?

    Plenty of McGuffins, though.

    And, “the assassin” assassinated himself, by mistake, isn’t a murder mystery, anymore. No murder. ACCIDENTAL.