There is a book out on the Litvinenko incident that I posted on before. It clearly shows someone seeing evidence in light of a preconcieved notion, at least the first excerpt does. This is the unintentionally, yet impossible to bypass, bias that has the UK media grasping to the assassination theory without considering any other equally viable alternatives. And of course to keep this up they need to now ignore evidence outright – as this latest excerpt does. Since you only need to show a fatal flaw in a theory to make it a useless one, I will provide a couple (as usual). Here is the basic premise underpinning every conclusion in this segment:

The accumulated weight of evidence is overwhelming. Elements among Litvinenko’s former colleagues in the FSB had not for a moment ceased to plot against him, and on November 1 last year they got him.

What can be said with equal certainty is that it was an operation long in the planning. Lugovoi first contacted Litvinenko at the end of 2005, setting up a business relationship that served as a reason for his and Kovtun’s visits leading to the final encounter on November 1 in the Pine Bar of the Millennium hotel.

Indeed, the subterfuge may go back further. Back in 2001 he had been jailed for allegedly taking part in a botched operation to help Berezovsky’s jailed business partner escape from Lefortovo prison in Moscow. He was released soon afterward and became a successful businessman.

If the aim was to infiltrate him as a double agent into the Berezovsky camp, it means Lugovoi then spent five years or more as a “sleeper”, gaining the confidence of the enemy before carrying out his long-planned mission.

As folks know this idea Lugovoi was a sleeper comes primarily from the people around Berezovsky. But Berezovsky has had to admit that Lugovoi was his bodyguard and the bodyguard for his daughter – not positions given to just anyone. Lugovoi was a more trusted associate to Berezovsky than Litvinenko was – fact one. So let’s debunk more of this hyperbole:

As well as being long planned, the Litvinenko operation looked to have had the backing of a powerful organisation with access to such esoteric resources as polonium. And once again the evidence points to serving or former FSB officers.

Lugovoi himself has no explanation for his and Kovtun’s polonium contamination except to suggest it might have come from contact with Litvinenko. In an interview with the newspaper Izvestiya he claimed that polonium is often used by police and other agencies to tag counterfeit money and drugs, and suggested Litvinenko could have been poisoned as a result of his own criminal activities.

It is an ingenious explanation but unfortunately fails to account for the fact that Lugovoi and Kovtun were contaminated long before they met Litvinenko on November 1.

The fact Lugovoi has no answer is not a sign of guilt. I have no hard answers either – and neither does Boris Berezovsky – who has Po-210 contamination in his offices where Lugovoi and Litvinenko were in seperate occasions within a day of Litvinenko’s falling ill. And the reporter also fails to note that the previous contaminations of Lugovoi and Kovtun and all the hotel rooms are tied right back to meetings with Litvinenko throughout October. So who contaminated who is not so cut and dry as this ‘reporter’ (who is selling a book) claims. And who are esoteric people who could afford to get their hands on Po-210?

Well, Berezovsky is the richest of the Russian Oligarchs in exile for plundering Russia – and he has Po-210 traces in his offices. Not to mention he is bankrolling the media PR effort to divert attention towards Putin and has since the day Litvineno’s hair started falling out – a clear sign of radiation poisoning. Coincidence that Berezovsky started plowing lots of money into this PR campaign and has had his NY City mouthpiece flying to London nearly non-stop to plant story after story after story in the press. Most of which were veiled threats against Lugovoi to keep quiet or he would be the one they tried to pin Litvinenko’s death on. It was only after Lugovoi and Kovtun were clearly turning into cooperating witnesses that Berezovsky’s PR machine FINALLY mentioned Lugovoi as a suspect – supposedly a suspect from called out by Litvinenko. Except that phone call Lugovoi had with Litvinenko as he lay ill dying. The story is too pat and takes turns EVERY time Berezovsky is forced into the limelight. Now he is railing against Russia and Scotlandyard, were before he was all supportive of the Yard to get to the bottom of this.

My guess is there are contacts about to be rounded up who are turning more evidence against the masterminds behind the Po-210 smuggling through Europe. These extra witnesses will determine whether this is assassination or nuclear smuggling. I think Berezovsky has caught wind of the fact the network is be rolled up.