Dec 20 2006
Kovtun Suspects Polonium Smuggling Ring
After some reflection on my earlier post regarding claims by an ex-Russian working for MI-6 that he knew the Litvinenko murderer, I am not too concerned about eating any crow on this Polonium story yet. The biggest problem with this guy’s claims is he cannot explain the three smuggling trips seen with Lugovoi and Litvinenko during October which authorities now admit occured. The dose given Litvinenko, while deadly, is less than a grain of salt. And no one needs three trips to smuggle in a couple grains of salt (including some for practice rounds prior to the hit). I am still of the opinion the amount ‘spilled’ in the hotel room constitutes a significantly larger amount than Litvinenko ingested – which would be the end of the assassination theory.
I still think Lugovoi and Kovtun are part of the smuggling because of all the lame excuses they gave for their early signs of radiation poisoning (who could forget the laughable tanning bed excuse for hair loss). But I also think they have decided to work with authorities and are dropping hints as to where the investigation is headed:
A Russian businessman who has been implicated in the mysterious London polonium poisoning case has told a German television channel that he thinks the dead man, Alexander Litvinenko, may have been a polonium smuggler.
…
“I believe Litvinenko was unreliable. He was short of money. It’s conceivable that he was smuggling polonium,” Kovtun said.
Very conceivable. And I do not think it is a huge surprise that a long dormant investigation into Chechen leader in exile, and Litvinenko friend, Zakayev has been restarted due to the investigation into Litvinenko’s death:
The criminal action brought in against Zakaev far back in 2001 has been resumed “in view of the circumstances discovered anew,†said the official statement of prosecutors. In fact, the probe into Zakaev gained momentum along with investigating the London poisoning murder of Alexander Litvinenko, former officer of FSB.
And now we get a glimpse into the criminal mind of Litvinenko from people who interviewed him last spring:
The Alexander Litvinenko who talked to us in April and May was not the martyr to the Kremlin that he has been painted as since his death. Instead he was a little unstable, even threatening to blackmail his one-time associates for money. One version of Litvinenko’s life is that his conscience made him turn whistle-blower on his FSB superiors; another is that he was a hired gun who transferred his loyalties from the state to the private sector. We did not want to spit on the man’s grave, but it did seem right to tell the truth about him when he was the subject of great public interest.
What I find intriguing about this media outlet is they recognize the PR machine which was set into motion right around the time it was clear Litvinenko was suffering from radiation poisoning – not thallium as had been initially suspected:
Ramping up the Cold War hysteria in Britain is the public relations svengali Tim Bell. The magic he worked for Margaret Thatcher is now at the service of Boris Berezovsky, the expatriate Russian oligarch. It was Bell who circulated the photograph of Litvinenko on his deathbed. Berezovsky is one of many expatriate Russians who enriched themselves in the privatisation of Russia’s state-owned businesses. Today he presents himself as a political exile, seeking to overthrow Putin. Yet only six years ago Berezovsky helped finance Putin’s presidential campaign, as he did Boris Yeltsin’s before him.
This story still has a lot to reveal. If Lugovoi and Kovtun where allied with Berezovsky and Litvinenko but are now making deals to protect themselves, then all the PR in the world will not help.
Oh that’s rich – Kovtun, the PO butterfingers, accusing the victim of smuggling.
Any chance he might explain why it is he is the one that has tracked it over more square feet than anyone else?
This is classic Kremlin – destroy the enemy. Accuse them of any and all crimes imaginable, charge them in absentia, assassinate them, and then blame the victim.
Sounds like Gordievsky hit a nerve.
I rather suspect they were used to carry the stuff and were not informed of the danger. If they are seriously contaminated, there is good reason to believe they would have turned against their “customer”.
Even if they don’t have a fatal dose, if they got any significant internal contamination, they are likely to die a long, miserable death from leukemia or other cancer.
AJ – this is a breath of fresh air. Thanks
Enlightened,
You got it. Kovtun’s implicated past his neck in this. They have his polonium-smeared fingerprints on a dated document in Hamburg — from before the time Litvinenko is known to be poisoned.
His only hope whatsoever to avoid murder conviction is convincing authorities that Litvinenko’s poisoning could have occured earlier than November 1st, or he’s a goner.
But poor guy, he’s “damned if he do, and damned if he don’t” because how does he explain that polonium? And how does he protect his bosses?
He has to indict himself as a smuggler by bringing in the smuggling ring theory — after all, Russia already made it clear they won’t extradite him. So that’s his story, and he’s stickin’ to it. And who knows, he may be willing to take extra heat for this due to some extralegal incentives coming from his employer.
That’s what I think is happening.
Russia showed its cards in this ages ago by not hopping all over the polonium part of the investigation in the aggressive manner that Britain and Germany have. They are very slowly sweeping the 40 planes Germany’s requested to have tested — as of this past weekend, they managed to finish four of them. But hey, it’s the holidays, and people are busy, you know?
AJStrata,
“And now we get a glimpse into the criminal mind of Litvinenko from people who interviewed him last spring”
To take a look at the people who wrote that, I’m bringing this, re. “Spiked!” and Svetlichanaya and Heartfield, which I just posted on the other thread, into this one:
No legitimate media source will touch either Julia Svetlichanaya or James Heartfield now. They have no evidence for the “hundreds of emails†Svetlichnaya originally claimed to have received from Litvinenko in her Guardian article, and even a moderate peak into their backgrounds brings up more problems for them than solutions.
Using “Spiked!†as the media forum for attempting to rebuild their credibility is ridiculous since it’s actually more damaging (look up the LM Group). Notice, too, the article you cited carefully sidesteps addressing the heart of Aftenposten’s charge against Svetlichnaya — Svetlichnaya’s work with OAO Russian Investors. (And what’s this she “came to†London in 1994? Hey, so did I. Big deal. Then I went home. And she probably did, too.) They do not attempt
Heartfield’s spreading the disinformation, too, and here’s his profile, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Heartfield, which includes:
“He was the Manchester branch organiser of the now defunct Revolutionary Communist Party; in the early nineties, wrote for Living Marxism until it was closed by a libel action in 2000. He helped write the party’s manifesto.”
Meant to say…
They do not attempt
to explain her personal or work history between “she came to London in 1994” and her current U of Westminster status.
Other than bending toward light and producing chlorophyl —
Ms. Svetlichnaya has all the signs of being a plant.
No news on this from our man in beautiful downrown Kalingrad?
Wen the article came out, there was a link attaced that pointed to U of Westminster. She appears to be a phd student.