Ex-KGB spy 'was poisoned in hotel'

[deminks]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2493244,00.html

As Alexander Litvinenko was buried yesterday investigators revealed that they now suspect that the former Kremlin spy was poisoned in the bar of a luxury London hotel when he met two Russian businessmen.

All seven bar staff working at the Pine Bar in the Millennium Hotel that night have tested positive for polonium-210, the radioactive isotope that killed Litvinenko. Health authorities are trying urgently to contact the 250 customers using the busy bar on November 1.

Health experts said they were surprised to find that the levels of radiation found in the seven bar staff approached that found in Litvinenko’s wife, Marina. Professor Pat Troop, of the Health Protection Agency, said there was no short-term danger to the bar staff but conceded that there was a “very small” long-term risk of cancer.

Investigators believe the poison cocktail was likely to have been manufactured in a guest room at the hotel, a short walk away from the US Embassy. Significant traces of polonium-210 were found in a fourth-floor room, which was occupied by a visiting Russian.Police believe that the killer may have stalked Litvinenko in London that day and had first tried to poison the ex-KGB colonel in a sushi bar. That failed but the poisoner left ample traces of the deadly radioactive isotope in the Piccadilly restaurant. Traces were also found on an Italian academic, Mario Scaramella, who was in the Itsu sushi bar. Toxicologists found polonium-210 in every place that Litvinenko visited after his drink at the hotel. It was not until he arrived home two hours later that he was violently ill.

[antiimperialist]

1. Is Putin being framed by a country whose name I won't say

But that is upset because Putin has close ties to Iran?

[Shakespeare]

2. HAHAHA. Not likely.

Putin has good reason to be unhappy with the unfortunate souls who've met an untimely demise. He's just a bit more, shall we say, "proactive" about dealing with his critics than the bushies are.

[ToolTex]

4. Or maybe the Bushes have subtler resources, like single engine planes.

n/t

[No Exit]

7. Close!

I can't find the original article I was reading about this, but it told about these 7 or so "oligarchs" who moved in on the collapsing Soviet Union, and made--or rather stole--"their fortunes" through gobbling up the remains of the carcass.

One of them was a guy named Yegor Gaidar; another was a guy named Boris Berezovsky.

It was a rather involved story; the connection to the Litvinenko matter came when they said he had had some dealings with Berezovsky which left him (Litvinenko) with some rather compromising information about Berezovsky. Now, Russia is apparently after Berezovsky for some of his shenanigans, but Berezovsky is in exile in Britain. A day or so before Litvinenko was poisoned, Britain had JUST changed its extradition treaty in such a way that apparently for the first time, Berezovsky may be in danger of being delivered over by Britain, to Russia.

As far as that word you can't say... all but one of the "oligarchs" were... well, you know. Whether that has anything to do with anything, I don't know.

As I said, I can't find the article I read, but here's one that covers some of the same ground:

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10081

[peacetalksforall]

3. Why use something as lethal and as traceable as this is to take

someone out? I don't get it. Instead of just another suicide that gets lost with all the others - they use something that costs a small fortune (?), kills with so much suffering, leaves such an obvious trail. and affects so many?

What's the point in using this method?

Sorry if it's already been discussed. I'd really like to hear opinions.

[Bonescrat]

5. Visibility? Warning?

As in "Look what happened to that guy. See that guy? Don't be that guy."

[ToolTex]

6. Probably a warning to others. Similar to the Plame outing.

Very effective!

[cambie]

8. All good theory except

that the guy was a nothing, not worth making an example of - for the Russians. Maybe his polonium smuggling orginised crime buddies found him boring?

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Litvinenko poisoned 'by drink'

It was the contents of a cup that appears to have poisoned Alexander Litvinenko. Channel 4 News has discovered that the radioactive poison ingested by the former Russian spy is likely to have been poured into his drink at a London hotel on the day he fell ill.

Staff who picked up the cup and cleaned it in a dishwasher are also thought to have been contaminated with traces of polonium.

A Russian academic who knew Mr Litvinenko said today that in the weeks leading up to his death, he'd been trying to blackmail a wealthy businessman with links to the Kremlin.

http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=4102

Video at the link.