Jan 03 2007
4th Hotel Linked To Polonium-210 Trail
Update: Some corrections. The dates of the known Lugovoi trips to meet Litvinenko and which show Polonium are Oct 16th, Oct 25th and Oct- Nov 1. Here is my post on the reporting on the authorities finally admitting these events appear to be smuggling efforts. Here is the list of contaminated sites and people I was tracking as of last month and speculation on the relative doses.
Major Update: We apparently do have a fourth hotel site with mutiple contaminated rooms, which would indicate some sort of meeting point at the hotel and possible dispersion of the Polonium.
The case of the other person, who worked at the Best Western Hotel on Piccadilly, was “related two rooms which were sealed off to the public as part of the police investigation”, the HPA said in a statement on its website.
This may explain that mystery passenger who travelled with Kovtun from Hamburg to London on Nov 1st, the day Litvinenko may have been seriously exposed. Maybe they do have some trail on this person. Or maybe it was another of Lugovoi’s accommodations on the 13 trips he made to London to meet Litvinenko in 2006. But now four hotels – three of which are clearly associated with a known trip from Moscow to London by Andre Lugovoi, and who met with Alexander Litvinenko on each of these trips – that look to be meeting and dispersion points for contraband Polonium.
The amount that killed Litvinenko was the size of a fraction of a grain of salt. That amount did not require 3, let alone 4, smuggling trips to get it into the UK. In fact, the entire dose for Litvinenko could have been premixed out of country and brought in as a salt-powder form in an amount that would be a fraction of a sweetener packet. It is impossible to manage and transport a fraction of a grain of salt of material. So what was the size of each consignment? Remember that one sugar packet worth of Polonium is enough to kill tens of millions of people – if ingested as a poison. 4 trips for four sugar packets? Clearly the trail points to a month’s long smuggling effort which brought in amounts of Polonium that are staggering to think about just at the sugar packet level (4 grams in all if there was on sugar packet per trip, worth 100’s of millions of dollars for each packet). The news of a fourth hotel is not good news at all. Right now I wish this was an assassination effort. That way all the Polonium would have been used on Litvinenko. That seems highly improbable right now.
– end update
A fourth hotel has been linked to the Polonium-210 trail that connects the death of Litvinenko to the offices of Boris Berezovsky, the offices of 2-3 UK security firms, the trail of Dmitry Kovtun through Germany, and the trail of Russian businessmen Lugovoi which maps to meetings with Litvinenko.
Litvinenko died on Nov. 23 after exposure to the radioactive substance polonium 210. The isotope was later discovered in at least 12 London locations. Since then, at least 15 other people have tested positive for the substance, including the two reported today by the U.K. Health Protection Agency.
“In addition to the results we have already reported, a further result from a member of staff at the Best Western Premier Shaftesbury Hotel, Piccadilly, London, shows that they have been exposed to low levels of Po-210,” the agency said in an e-mailed statement. “A further result from a guest who visited the Pine Bar, at the Millennium Hotel London Mayfair, on 1 Nov 2006, shows that they have been exposed to low levels of Po-210.”
The addition of a 4th hotel contaminated could mean there were four ‘consignments’ of Polonium-210 smuggled into London since each of the other three hotels contaminted, authorities agree, possibly represent a shipment of Polonium-210. Of course, there is also the possibility the staff member from the Shaftesbury Hotel was at one of the other hotels at the wrong time. But this hotel clearly sits apart from the others in terms of location. The truth is this hotel was on the early list of hotels linked to the Polonium-210 trail, as this article notes. What connection this hotel has is unclear at the moment. If I find more I will update the post.
Update: Should have checked my own blog! The hotel in question is associated with the reporting on the Swedish couple, one of which tested for elevated Polonium 210. The early reporting around this story clearly indicates the room the couple stayed in was contaminated. And therefore this would make it the 4th hotel site that probably ties a Lugovoi visit to a Litvinenko meeting. And this trip and portion of the trail would predate the previous earliest known segment of the path which was associated with a Lugovoi and Kovtun visit and meetings with Litvinenko and security companies on Oct 5-7. One thing is for sure, the authorities did what they could to keep this site under the media radar for as long as possible.
This hotel already came up in this thead here, AJ.
I would hope that investigators would have checked whether any of these hotels received packages from any of the suspected countries of origin well back into Sept or Oct. For example, Kovtun could have been exposed to (or repackaged) the Po in Germany before leaving for London. Then again he might have hand carried it. I don’t know which would be the worse risk, hand carried or shipments.
This is indeed worrysome. The movement of this polonium must be explained and any stocks of it secured. Again, I would be interested to know if they are seeing any polonium in the waste water stream in London or Moscow
I notice that Clarice-who has been strangely vehement and even a bit nasty in her insistence that your theories are bunk–has grown suddenly invisible, AJ. I’m becoming more and more convinced, to my horror, that you have been right all along. This may well have been an assassination, but it was an assassination carried out by a smuggling ring moving a lot of nuclear material. Terrifying.
Just a reminder (the news media is no help on keeping the info up to date) – we haven’t heard a PEEP about Lugovoi and Kovton’s health lately nor have they been blabbing to the press as far as I know – maybe they are worn out from their New Year’s celebration at their hospital.
Clarice has been taken out in a lefty sweep of her run-down neighbourhood.
Smuggling as a hypothesis is definitly superior to the assination hypothesys but still it needs to be adjusted to the couple of facts:
– Why autopsy reports were withheld from the public.
– Why there was so much so well organized media bubbling despite the fact that it provides direct clues to the terrorists. Should not media be charged with communicating information that might be useful to the enemy ?
– We know some sock puppets (one dead, three or four alive) but the real question is who controlled the smuggling. Was it under control of some three letter agency (if we discard assignation theory it still can be some kind of “feasibility study”) or some kind of terrorist network (“list of puppets” does not look too inspiring in this respect with the exception of Litvinenko who converted to Islam on his death bed).
Quote: “we haven’t heard a PEEP about Lugovoi and Kovtun’s health lately nor have they been blabbing to the press as far as I know – maybe they are worn out from their New Year’s celebration at their hospital.”
Too funny. No turkey and stuffing for those two, that’s for sure.
I’m surprised that any of the guys went back to where they came from – Lugovoy, Kovtun or Scaramella. They were all bringing shame and scandal to the family.
Think Scaramella was deported by the Brits? He held out for a long time in the UK.
Why there was so much so well organized media bubbling despite the fact that it provides direct clues to the terrorists. Should not media be charged with communicating information that might be useful to the enemy ?
This is the media. The UK have the same problem the US does with these people. Think New York Times’ disclosures re classified programs. The story is all important. The people’s right to know, you know. But only selective.
“…but the real question is who controlled the smuggling.”
Likbez I think we know the answer to that. Berezovsky had the means to finance even the most incredibly expensive operations. He also seems to have the ambition, temperament, trained staff, and background for this sort of work.
The question for you (rather than for me or other relatively uninformed Americans) is: Assuming it is indeed Berezovsky, what would he be up to?
What I find very intriguing is that he is reportedly an Israeli citizen. This raises the possibility of (a) a terror attack on the terrorists, eg Iran or AQ, or (b) a hair of the dog strategy in which he attacks a country he actually ultimately supports in the hopes of inciting a military response from the victim. Specifically a suitcase nuke attack on Israel designed to finger Iran would fit the bill. Or is he hoping to rekindle the cold war with an attack on the US, fingering Russia?
Gotta Know
Bereszovsky has said many times he intends to regain power in Russia so a coup there would be the most likely bet. How he plans to do this is the question. I doubt that he would stick at much.
I agree Barbara, that is what I would think, and the question is, if so, how best to do that? I can’t see how a terrorist attack against Russia would accomplish much. Better to “frame” Russia and let her sovereign enemies do the heavy lifting, ie attack a “friendly” and make it look like Russia did it. That seems rather stupid though, and difficult to pull off.
Gotta Know
Maybe that’s why the polonium is in the UK.