See Correction Below

There has been a lot of news out today regarding the Po-210 trail which continues to conflict with the idea that Litvinenko was poisoned as part of an assassination attempt in the Pine Bar in the Millenium Hotel between 4:30 and 5:00 PM on November 1st. The primary problem is the trail extends well before this meeting in the bar between Litvinenko, Lugovoi, Kovtun and possibly one other unknown Russian (Sokolenko and his family showed up at the end as they headed out to the CSKA Moscow – Arsenal game).

We know Litvinenko met with Scaramella at the Itsu Sushi bar from 3:00 PM to about 3:45 PM. There is a claim by Berezovsky and others, who would have good reason to try and cover up a Po-210 smuggling operation, that Litvinenko dropped by Berezovsky’s offices. Here is the first map and timeline which has remained basically intact – except the time period for the Litvinenko visit in the Pine Bar (now down to 30 minutes, thought there may be a large window for the meeting). At a glance it looks like all the contamination sites are nearby each other. I do find it interesting Berezovsky’s home is noted on this map. This other map shows a little better how far out of the way Berezovsky’s office was from the Itsu restaurant to the Millenium Hotel. It also shows the supposed last stop of Litvinenko before he went home – the RISC Management security firm.

Now we are getting reports from the HPA that nearly 120 people have shown low levels of poisoning (if we wish to reserve the word ‘contamination’ for the situation where Po-210 is on the outside of the body and not ingested or inhaled). The media summarizes this information quite well:

Nearly one in five people tested for the radioactive substance which killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko showed signs of contamination, public health officials have said.

The Health Protection Agency examined urine samples from 596 people in the UK who feared they may have inadvertently got caught up in the poison bid.

Of those, 120 tested positive but only 13 were deemed to have any type of risk to their health.

…

The HPA is working with 48 different countries and has identified 450 people who may have been affected worldwide.

Actually around 50 of those tested positive were above the normal level of Po, but deemed not to have been in contact – but there is some debate about that conclusion. Anyway, what is clear is the number of people contaminated is not showing a sign of some isolated attack, but of a containment accident with people tracing the material around. We see this in the list of locations linked to the November 1 date:

Mr Litvinenko visited a number of venues in central London on the day that he fell ill. Among them was the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly and an Italian restaurant, also in Mayfair.

The news here is the last item – and confirms some suspicions I have had about what Litvinenko did during the day before he met Scaramella. First off, this restaurant was the last location mentioned as a contaminated site, and is the very same restaurant Berezovsky’s mouthpiece, Alex Goldfarb, was waiting with journalists to get the news of Litvinenko’s passing.

Clearly Litvinenko did not tell police he went to Pescatori Restaurant on the day of his travels because this site was just tested and identified in the last week or so – after authorities returned from the interviews with Kovtun and Lugovoi in Moscow. So when did this restaurant trip take place? Who was there? And if the people contaminated are also from the Itsu Resaurant then we have a trail of debri from a spill going back to before 3:00 PM and possibly all the way to 12:00 PM. What one should look at is this map and compare it to the timeline map above and one things jumps out – Dover Street, where the restaurant is, is within a few blocks of Berezovsky’s office. On the street map the yellow arrow indicates Dover St. Now click once on the left hand arrow to shift slightly westward and in the middle-upper left you will see Grosvenor square – where Berezovsky’s offices are. Corrections: My mistake. Grosvenor Square is the location of the two mystery security firms (RISC Management and Erinys) which have shown to be part of the Po-210 trail and tied to Litvinenko, Lugovoi and Kovtun. Berezovsky’s office is on Down Street – which is right above the “A4” on Picadilly St dead center on the map if you did the one click left. It onlys shows “DO” because the word “Metropolitan” lays over the rest of the word. – end correction His offices are indicated with the number “2” on the timeline map.

My theory has been that the contamination was in the Millenium Hotel room upstairs on the 4th floor earlier in the day, possibly with Litvinenko in the room picking up Kovtun and Lugovoi. The spill happens there and is clearly indicated by strong Po-210 in a spot on the carpet and on the light switch. Then the three went with Litvinenko to meet some security firms and possibly see Berezovsky. It is possible they stopped to eat at the restaurant, but Litvinenko decided to hold off eating until he met Scaramella at his favorite sushi bar (I can understand that choice).

The HPA is indicating people from all three sites may be caught up in the debri cloud that predates the Pine Bar meeting. In addition, it is assumed the assassin would use one method to poison Litvinenko. We know he was poisoned twice, once days or weeks before November 1st and this expanding trail. So why is it the first attempt did not show the same dispersion? Probably because Litvinenko was hit again when he came into the presence of the contraband (and possibly checking to see if it was there and in good shape) and then went straight home that time. Whatever the case, the trails do not look the same for both poisonings (as far as we know). And this leads me to think this could not be two forms of poisoning, but two differing levels of containment breaches.

Either way, if the trail of Po-210 goes back before the Scaramella meeting to another restaurant, then it is impossible for the Pine Bar to be the site of the poisoning.