We now have a huge hole in the UK case against Lugovoi, IF (and this is a big ‘if’) media reports are accurate. The UK media has been force fitting evidence to their pet “Putin ordered the killing” theory for so long they have forgot to sanity check the their theories. So let’s do it for them:

In pouring the solution which held the polonium into Litvinenko’s teapot at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, central London, the killer appears to have contaminated himself. He then left a trail of radiation wherever he went – in restaurants, hotel rooms, taxis and airports. Whenever he shook hands, touched a light switch, opened a briefcase or handed over a bank note he was spreading the polonium, and leaving a trace which police were able to follow.

Now we have the critical timeline elements. First note that the “pouring of the poison solution” has to happen first – at the beginning of the trail. Also note that Po-210 can be removed from skin with simple washing. So a trail would disappear after a hand washing if not for contamination on close that re-applies the Po-210 to the hands. So what do we know about the timeline? Well the pouring took place early in the day. Litvinenko met with Scaramella at 3:00 PM and was contaminated at that time (one of the restaurants hinted at above?). So his contact was before the Pine Bar meeting at 4:00 PM. We also know Litvinenko had a lunch time meeting prior to meeting Scaramella sometime around noon. At noon he buys a newspaper when he first enters London but there is not trail. It has to start after noon.

This meeting could have been started at the Millenium Hotel and then moved to the second contaminated restaurant. The challenge here is the spill that occurred during the pouring should have happened in Lugovoi’s room. The light switch is in the hotel room with the massive spill – Lugovoi’s room. But Lugovoi did NOT bring a tea pot down to the Pine Bar! Of course not, and all reports are he did not. So how is it the Po-210 is mixed before noon and how does it get into Litvinenko until later the afternoon in the Bar? It can’t.

I predicted a while back the accident took place in the hotel room when Litvinenko (supposedly NEVER in Lugovoi’s room), Lugovoi and Kovtun in the room. What could have been an effort to liquify the Po-210 in order to smuggle it could have turned into an accidental poisoning. Or, my theory, the Po-210 spilled and they used the teapot to hold it while they found a new container. Tea is the kind of agent that might disolve the remaining Po-210 left in the teapot. Recall it takes micrograms to get massive contaminations. The timeline doesn’t work (with the reporting to date).

The briefcase is Kovtun’s and is part of the trail back to Moscow and then to Hamburg. This is not news (for those of us paying attention) and works in with the contamination at the first of the three visits to London with Po-210 around Oct 16th. Kovtun missed the second meeting on the 25th. And there is a biological timing problem:

And anyone who ingested the polonium excreted minute amounts through their sweat glands, but again with a much lower level of radiation.

The sweat cycles takes hours to kick in and does secrete small fractions of the dosage. The only one with a dosage high enough to leave a sweat trace was Litvinenko. To sweat out detectable amounts seems to require a deadly dose.

I think it is clear the spill and poisoning happened in the hotel room – as I predicted. If that is the case that is one of many predictions I made which the evidence has born out. And that implies a shakey case.

It will be fascinating to see what Lugovoi has to offer. Just like the teapot cannot be traced to Lugovoi after being in use for a month at the Millenium (no fingerprints, no DNA, one of many similar pots) the evidence does not make a UNIQUE scenario tied to only Lugovoi. It is speculative and circumstantial. The evidence can create a myriad of equally plausible scenarios – including a smuggling ring. If the requirement to meet ‘reasonable doubt’ was applied to this case it would fail.