NYT,pg1: A Dinner in Ukraine Made for Agatha Christie (Yushchenko)

[DeepModem Mom]

A Dinner in Ukraine Made for Agatha Christie
By C. J. CHIVERS

Published: December 20, 2004


KIEV, Ukraine, Dec. 18 - The presidential candidate appeared for a hushed meeting an hour before midnight on Sept. 5, arriving in a black Mercedes-Benz at an exclusive dacha outside the capital here. He was accompanied by a campaign manager. He had left his bodyguards behind.

Waiting for the candidate, Viktor A. Yushchenko, were two leaders of the Security Service of Ukraine, or S.B.U., the country's successor to the K.G.B., including Gen. Ihor P. Smeshko, its chairman. Mr. Yushchenko was leading in the presidential race. He had sought the meeting to discuss, among other things, death threats against him.

The four men drank beer and ate boiled crayfish from a common bowl, as well as a salad made of tomatoes, cucumbers and corn. Later, they selected vodka and meats, and then cognacs for a last drink. When the meeting ended about 2 a.m., Mr. Yushchenko went home to bed and began, his supporters say, to die.

More than three months later, the dinner at the dacha has assumed the character of an Agatha Christie mystery mixed with a cold war spy tale. Mr. Yushchenko, his doctors say, had been poisoned. But how? And by whom?...


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/international/europe/20ukraine.html?pagewanted=all&position=

[Tesla]

1. His poor face!!!

This story just seems getting stranger!!!

I loved Jon Stewart saying he got hit with a Cold War Soviet "Ugly Stick"!!

[daleo]

2. The poisoned soup story seems dubious now

As we now hear their was no soup.
Also, what was eaten, was eaten from a common dish.
Also, dioxin should have take much longer to show up.
Also, he was complaining of ill health before even going to the meal.

As many on this forum suspected, there seems to be more to this story than what we were led to suspect.

[daleo]

3. This didn't go very far

But it is interesting. It doesn't seem to have been picked up by any other media. Basically, NYT is backtracking from the poison soup story, as many of us felt might happen.