Jan 19 2007
As AJStrata Predicted: Litvinenko Poisoned In Hotel Room!
Update: I have extended this topic in a second post above, for those interested. It discusses why this news eliminates the assassination theory as a possible explanation for Litvinenko’s death. – end update
It seems the Litvinenko poisoning did take place inside a hotel room in the Mayfair hotel as I said it did, and not in the Pine Bar as everyone has been assuming. First to the money quote which I predicted weeks ago
:
According to police sources, until now it has not been revealed that Litvinenko visited a fourth-floor room at the Millennium Hotel to discuss a business deal.
He had gone to the room with Mr Kovtun and another former Russian agent, Andrei Lugovoy.
The three men were joined in the room later by the mystery figure who was introduced as “Vladislavâ€.
It is gratifying to see that I was correct on what the Po-210 trail was indicating. This also means I was correct when I predicted the Pine Bar contamination was due to the tea cup being washed in the dishwasher. This brings us to an interesting nexus: Litvinenko was in the room where the Po-210 was spilled and cleaned up. But there is still one more player in this dance of death
Police have identified the man they believe poisoned Alexander Litvinenko. The suspected killer was captured on cameras at Heathrow as he flew into Britain to carry out the murder.
Friends of the ex-spy say that the man was a hired killer, sent by the Kremlin, who vanished hours after administering a deadly dose of radioactive polonium-210 to Litvinenko.
He arrived in London on a forged EU passport and reportedly slipped the poison into a cup of tea he made for Litvinenko in a London hotel room.
“Friends of the ex-spy” are also possible associates who could be involved in the smuggling of Po-210 through London and possibly to Russia. The fact is everytime Lugovoi travelled to London to meet Litvinenko and the British security firms Litvinenko worked for Po-210 ended up contaminating multiple rooms. As if the Po-210 was being distributed onto others to transport to different locations.
These encounters happend three times in October. And now Police are putting the tea cup in the room which showed a massive spill of Po-210 on the rug:
The assassins were so bungling that they dropped the polonium on the floor of a London hotel room, a senior government source told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
…
The senior government source, who is aware of the discussions of the Cabinet’s emergency committee, Cobra, said the picture of the killers that was emerging was closer to bungling assassins than cool James Bond-type killers.
Clear traces of the radiation were found on the floor of a room, thought to be in the Millennium hotel in central London, the source said, as well as on a light switch in the same room. The traces were so strong that they indicated the actual source of the radiation was present, not a secondary source such as excretions from Mr Litvinenko’s contaminated body.
The fact that the tea cup (and probably Litvinenko) were once again in a hotel with a Po-210 consignment simply means when the Po-210 spill, a bit the size of a dust particle got into Litvinenko’s tea and he drank it before realizing it could be a danger. We also know Litvinenko was poisoned twice, probably during one of the previous smuggling runs, probably in one of the previously contaminated hotel rooms. So while Berezovsky and other Litvinenko ‘friends’ who may have been linked to all these meetings along the Po-210 trail (recall the Po-210 is in Berezovsky’s office and at the offices of these questionable UK security firms, one of which was owned at one time by another Russian Oligarch through the defunct oil company Yukos) point the fingers at Moscow – they are the ones with Po-210 linked to them. And what about this mystery man? Did he get a portion of the consignment and transport it to its final destination?
Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB agent and friend of Litvinenko, who has worked closely with police on the investigation, said: “This man is believed to have used a Lithuanian or Slovak passport. He did not check into any hotel in London using the name or that passport, and he left the country using another EU passport.â€
German police are investigating how polonium-210 was found in various locations Mr Kovtun visited in Hamburg.
Where was this man headed? And did he leave a trail of Po-210? The spill in the hotel room appears to have been massive. It seems to reflect an amount of Po-210 orders of magnitude larger than what hit Litvinenko internally. And I knew it had to be the location of Litvinenko’s, Lugovoi’s and Kovtun’s exposure since no other point on the Po-210 trail showed such an explosion of material. What is clear is this mystery man is or will be gravely ill – with hair loss. Unless, he came into the room at some time other than when the spill happened. Either prior or after it was cleaned up.
So how do police know of these details? Lugovoi and Kovtun appear to be under plea agreements. They claim to be witnesses – not suspects. They have good reason to turn on their long time associates: Litvinenko and Berezovsky. But one thing is certain, the story being told by Mr Gordievsky to the times is a fabrication. Why? The Millenium hotel was NOT the first place police looked – that was the Itsu sushi restaurant. And investigators did not know of Litvinenko’s lunch with Lugovoi at the Picadilly restaurant until just recently. A lunch that appears to have happened before the Scaramella meeting. The fact these sites were later in the investigation tells me efforts were made to cover up the meeting in the hotel, the lunch, all those activities prior to Scaramella and the Pine Bar meeting late that afternoon. Here is Gordievsky’s speculation:
Mr Gordievsky told The Times yesterday how “Vladislav was described as someone who could help Mr Litvinenko win a lucrative contract with a Moscow-based private security company.
“Sasha (his name for Litvinenko) remembered the man making him a cup of tea.
“His belief is that the water from the kettle was only lukewarm and that the polonium-210 was added, which heated the drink through radiation so he had a hot cup of tea. The poison would have showed up in a cold drink,†he added.
The hotel room where Litvinenko thought he was poisoned remains sealed off. This room reportedly showed the heaviest concentration of polonium-210 found at a dozen locations across London.
We shall see, but that doesn’t explain all the other hotel rooms with Po-210 and Lugovoi and Litvinenko. Hopefully this mystery man will be so sick he cannot be missed or dies trying to stay undercover. But I would bet, once found, he is tied to Litvinenko and Berezovsky – not Putin. But I was right about the poisoning in the hotel room, with the tea cup in the same room.
Agan, why did Litvinenko sip the Koolaid?
Seems if you were going to get a russian to “drink up” … you’d be watching him down vodka.
But it’s a good thing they moved to the ROOM where the “spill” took place. Because that has to mean besides the lips. And, the toasts. There was “something else” going on … involving hands. Where hands were “opening something UP.”
Did money also change hands?
Did Litvinenko “look” unhappy? Hardly likely.
Plus, how safe are these hotel rooms when it comes to chatter?
I’ll give ya that Litvinenko probably wasn’t talking in English.
But why would the man mistake his killer? I can see being confused about “rooms.” But Scaramella got the finger pointed at him. For a while, he became “the contestant.”
And, it still doesn’t explain the HOW IN ALL HECK WAS THERE ENOUGH POLONIUM IN THAT ROOM, that it was being treated as smuggled contraband.
After that one scene in a Woody Allen flim; where he was being passed some cocaine. Powder. What did he do? He sneezed?
Is it possible Litvinenko sneezed? And, this caused whatever it was to “fly about” … And, then it needed to be “recapured?”
Still, for a product being adertised as “being able to kill millions of people; there you are in ONE HOTEL ROOM. And, so far, all you’ve got are ONE SINGLE BODY. Of a guy who thought he could be cured. And, who thought he was “poisoned.” We’re piecing stuff together from lies. (Well. Once there was this single bullet that flew around. And, who knows? It could still be flying. It found its perfect altitude. And, enough gullible people willing to “sell” … or call it “market” this story. In government circles, perhaps, you get a lot of takers?)
I think if putin wanted Litvinenko killed, he wouldn’t go out of his way to do it in this manner. Push comes to shove. Litvinenko would’a fallen out of the hotel room window. It was up on the 9th floor. )
A woman, with a bulb baster, these days can impregnate herself. So why not a greedy thief, with a radioactive product that does NOT set off the Geiger Counter. Why not think he was more worried about the contents spilling OUT, than swallowing da’ evidence?
What do you do when things don’t compute?
You know, according to Drudge’s headline, today, cell phones can give you brain cancer. From prolonged usage. Maybe, on putin’s next outting, he’ll see to it that russia supplies the cell phones?
While the rumor, in “that” London mosque was not to trust the casket. Since the imam was sure it was so radioactive, it shouldn’t be allowed into the building. You’ve heard of funerals like that? Where’s the tin foil when you need it?
By the way, IF putin really did send the KGB out to kill Litvinenko, the polonium is secondary to the plot. Since putin didn’t know the smuggler was transporting the “merchandise.” Given how hits get ordered, ya know?
I still think the KGB would stick to conventional methods. This operation, from the standpoint of an assassination, doesn’t look like it was meant to kill a million people.
couple of nit-picks … it’s the Millenium, not Mayfair.
Yes, there may have been a massive dose spilled and in the tea cup, but perhaps he only had a sip or two, which explains the ingested amount.
As I’ve said before, due to Russian cover-up (stonewalling, whatever) the truth will never be known for certain.
Sherlock Holmes thought the police were too dull to figure out crimes.
Seems so. Or there wouldn’t be such an interesting in sleuthing beyond what the fabricated PR story was supposed to tell.
But if you want to piece this together as “something done by the Godfather,” then you have to come up with motive.
Why was the horse’s head in the bed? To scare the daylights out of the guy who owned the horse!
Do we have such an event, here?
No.
It seems there was an on-going smuggling operation, involving russians. Which is NOTHING NEW TO SMUGGLING OPERATIONS!
That this wasn’t women being smuggled? True! This was not a small-time operation! This was so big it got the italians interested. That’s not run of the mill!
And, we’re told the money involved here is HUGE. In other words, you’re seeing “something small enough” that it can be easily hidden, BUT NOT EASILY OBTAINED, going from place to place. FOR A REASON.
So, I said, the HOUSE OF SAUD would pay big money if they could get something “even bigger than 9/11.”
This practically writes itself.
Butsomething went awry. And, about 100 smugglers are now a lot wiser than they were, when they first came on board this “radiation trolley.”
If putin wanted to do something? He’d want it written about all over the world? You think so? Well, Sherlock. I don’t.
And, I think Litvinenko could have been stupid enoughh to “pick up the spilled contents” of the container, that “blew open” when he was taking “amounts” from one container. And, “cutting it.” OR, ADDING TO WHAT HE HAD.
And, among friends, this “spill” was serious. So there was an attempted “pick up.”
Plus cash? I do see Litvinenko, thinking he “washed his hands,” but still having those particles stuck on his fingers, licking his fingers TO COUNT THE MONEY. I really, really think you’ve got a “bag man” in this hotel room.
That russians travel, now, between Moscow, and other Continental cities? Yeah. I’m surprised at all this “tourism.” Who knew russians were now as “gad-about” as the Japanese? Coming and going through all the Continental airports, where flights come and go from Moscow. WHO KNEW?
At least I no longer suspect the travelers fall into a small group. But rather a large one.
And, ya know what? I actually see shoppers in stores like Ross For Less, buying cartloads of merchandise, that they then ship back to the Philippines. And, this stuff is SOLD when it arrives back in homelands that can’t even get our bargains.
So a lot of the traveling in Europe? You bet I think it’s not just “smuggling” but BIG BUSINESS.
As to the radioactive stuff? Well, that’s a new wrinkle.
But it had to involve very bad people who were thrilled at the thought they could do lots of harms.
And, now it appears THOUSANDS of men are involved every month, transporting “stuff.” (Just like those that go to Canada, to fly to Havana, to grab boxes of Cuban cigars.)
In other words BIG BUSINESS. Lots of transactions. And, added on top of this is the smuggling of radioactive merchandise. Where there are lots of arabs in the buying mood.
Somebody may have come up with types of spritz bottles that makes this new fangled way of death (slow, and looking like cancer), a commodity that interests more than just the smugglers.
And, London turns out to be a hot bed! Not Instanbul. London. (Because once you get this crap into London, you can get it to go anywhere. At competitive rates. By filling out a few customs forms.)
On the other hand, other than the HOUSE OF SAUD who is buying?
I also wonder if Litvinenko’s COHORTS believe it was just a “work accident.” Or if there’s enough paranoia out there, now, they’re fearing what they touch?
The next question has to do with turnover. When you steal something big (like the HOPE DIAMOND), you can hide it and wait till it’s safe to sell. Or you could do something terrible, like cut it down into smaller fragments, and sell it in the market place. But it’s not easy to “get rid of.” Radioacativity being what it is, its certainly gonna be harder to “get rid of.” Though maybe not as hard to just spill down the toilet.
The last thing in the world I think you’d find now in Beretovsky’s safe, are vials of this “hot” stuff.
By the way, one way Litvinenko contaminated others was by shaking hands. Again, it’s still a far way off from “assassinating” anyone.
What did you say? don’t bother, I have a headache.
Not quite as you predicted:”Police have identified the man they believe poisoned Alexander Litvinenko. The suspected killer was captured on cameras at Heathrow as he flew into Britain to carry out the murder.
Friends of the ex-spy say that the man was a hired killer, sent by the Kremlin, who vanished hours after administering a deadly dose of radioactive polonium-210 to Litvinenko.
He arrived in London on a forged EU passport and reportedly slipped the poison into a cup of tea he made for Litvinenko in a London hotel room. Litvinenko was reportedly able to give vital details of his suspected killer in a bedside interview with detectives just days before he died on November 23 at University College Hospital.
Police have decided not to publish pictures of this man, who was seen on CCTV cameras as he flew in from Hamburg on November 1, the day that Litvinenko fell ill. ”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2556377,00.html
PO in tea to ‘warm it up’ – somehow this seems ludicrous – I guess PO beats a microwave. Is there something chemically wrong with this statement – if it was in powder form it would heat up right? but not if in a liquid? CP; AJ asking for chemical help here. thanks
Clarice,
Weclome back. As I pointed out, friends of the ex-spy have Po-210 in their offices and cars. If they were part of the smuggling ring they have the most to gain from keeping the assassination angle alive.
I predicted Litvinenko was in the room when the spill happened with Lugovoi and Kovtun. And I will be doing a follow up post to show why now the assassination theory is just about dead.
Was there another person involved? It was a smuggling ring – of course there were more people involved! You linked to the same story I was referring to in my post.
Wiley, it is the Millenium hotel in Mayfair – but you blog in the middle of the night when you were on the way to bed! Sip won’t cut it – check the upcoming post.
I don’t buy this other man being the murderer. Lugovoi and Kovtun are busily covering their butts with a red herring. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose with this story. And when you look at it carefully it is very lame. It gets them off the hook as murderers and smugglers too. A mystery man who cannot be traced. I wouldn’t rely on these guys being truthful when faced with the alternative. A rock and a hard place and another even harder place. On the one hand the British government and on the other hand Bereszovsky and the other oligarches and the harder place the Russian government. No place to turn or hide. This guy might be involved but I’ll bet he is a courier for some of the polonium.
And more important it gets Bereszovsky off the hook also.
If the mystery man showed up on Nov 1, how was it that Sasha had signs of earlier poisoning? Was this the second attempt to kill him with Po210?
Sorry but the theory of assassination sounds like someone trying to set the record for the best rube goldberg operation.
Next to Goldfarb, Gordievsky has been the driving force of the propaganda story – read disinfo – since day one.
Remember – He was the first to claim he knew the identity of Litvinenko’s killer. Earlier it was the former Spetsnaz member of the military counterintelligence, GRU, named Igor, 46.
Now apparently he ‘knows’ it’s someone else entirely. (A mystery man.)
It was Gordievsky who claimed the famous ‘hit list’ memo from Limarev was central to the death of Anna Politkovskaya.
Later, Limarev denies this and at one point any memo whatsoever.
It’s Gordievsky who is the source of the Prodi smear. Later he denies this – even though he was at the briefing to UKIP which led to the smear in the European Parliament.
Later he blames that on Litvinenko while he and Scaramella call each other liars.
At another point, it is Gordievsky and Goldfarb who push for the arrest of Lugovoi as the killer.
Quote: According to Oleg Gordievsky, a friend of the victim and former KGB officer, Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in the morning. But Lugovoi and Kovtun insist they met in the afternoon.
And it’s Gordievsky who tells the press that the hit ‘could not have occurred “without the express approval of the President.†Trepashkin says so.
Gordievsky’s sources are always unverifiable – Trofimov – dead many years – Trepashkin – in a remote jail – Litvinenko, recently deceased.
I could go on . . . and probably will. My research to date suggests Gordievsky isn’t even that good a liar.
So I don’t believe a word of this story in Boris’s friend Murdoch’s ‘Times’.
Gordievsky is MI6. Russia’s assets and Yukos billions in particular were laundered abroad with the complicity of British institutions. This is what puts the Exiles and MI6 in bed with each other.
I’ll read your long post later..I’m working on something else that is taking my attention,,I think the Times is well wired into Scotland Yard and they clearly think it was an assassination.
You may be right, of course, but I’m still not buying it.
Putin is now trying to wipe out his enemies the former oligarchs and I fear you are being misled by this campaign.
Copy Dude,
Thanks for the reminders about Gordievsky!
Clarice,
I am not looking at anything but the science. I have no knowledge one way or other on Putin or the Oligarchs. They all seem rotten and all seem capable of killing for money. So the politics are irrelevant. The problem is the science is complex – but clear. So reporters have no hope of understanding it. I am only praying the police are not being snowed.
But it is always an honor to have you bless this blog with your presence – so don’t be a stranger. I gather you are gearing up on the Libby case. Fitzgerald is going to get roasted. The jury selection process alone showed how out gunned he is.
“Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB agent and friend of Litvinenko, who has worked closely with police on the investigation, said: “This man is believed to have used a Lithuanian or Slovak passport. He did not check into any hotel in London using the name or that passport, and he left the country using another EU passport.â€
Hmm… I think we can safely assume that whenever Gordievsky speaks it is MI5 speaks through him, because it is to this organization that G’s soul and body belong in this world and in the afterlife. We can also assume that G’s “friendship” with L. was the way MI5 communicated with L. and kept him under surveillance. G. was not the only way of doing this but clearly very important one. And btw, I wonder if the Scotland Yard interrogated the UK intelligence people who were responsible for keeping an eye on Litvinenko.
And this brings me back to the fundamental question: Who is in control of this “investigation” and what political interests drive it? Who exactly and why leaks, in carefully measured doses and calculated spin, the information bits like: “MI5 had avised Litvinenko to distance himself from Berezovsky” or “Police have identified the [Russian] man they believe poisoned Alexander Litvinenko” (but won’t tell us his name not show his picture!). Who exactly has determined that that man had a “forged EU passport”?!
Now let us imagine a likely scenario that would entail this kind of publicity. Let’s say the police gets more and more evidence that “Putin did it” and that the Russians are engaged in a “massive cover-up.” In that case I would expect to see a very different regime of (dis)information. Another scenario: an international criminal group (Chechens-cum-oligarchs-cum-mafia-cum renegate elements from Russian secret services) was preparing a “dirty bomb” explosion in Moscow or even London (why not?) metro system, in order to change radically the internal political dynamics in Russia and, perhaps, to involve Nato reponse. In the process, some members of the gang become contaminated, either by a pure accident or being helped by Russian counterintelligence. For instance, the FSB could discover the plot, trace the source where they purchased polonium and somehow temper with containers in hope also to compromise the Brits who give shelter to anti-Russian underground. It is likely that Basaev was eiminated in a similar way when Russians were able to compromise his chain of explosives delivery from abroad. But then the first question: where were the British intelligence and the Yanks?
They did not know anything about the plot? Hard to believe. As a former FSB officer, Litvinenko was supposed to be kept eye on by MI5 and we know that his “friend” Gordievsky did just that. How about the CIA? Well, Mr. Goldfarb, another “friend” of L. is the CIA and does not make any secret about it. Besides, the colorful Mr. Scaramella is said to have been in som erelations with a number of CIA men, including the mysterious “Perry” from California and a bunch of mates who kidnapped that Moslim cleric in Italy and have now an international arrest warrant issued on them.
So we can safely assume that both major Western services DID know something about the alleged “dirty bomb” plot. If we accept this logic then the next question will be: What did they do, if anything, about it?
The tentative answer to this question seems to depend on whether they were a part of the conspiracy from the very beginning, i.e. masterminded it, or they “simlply” learned about it at some stage of the operation. I leave off here for now to continue later.