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Former Spy Poisoned By Radiation In UK
An anonymous reader writes "BBC new is reporting the death of the ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with a major dose of radioactive polonium-210. But nobody knows how it got there. Suspicions have fallen upon the Russian security services (who deny involvement). The task of the pathologists now is to unpick what really killed him and how it was administered. Quite what techniques they will use to solve this puzzle is unclear." From the article: "A post-mortem examination on Mr Litvinenko has not been held yet. The delay is believed to be over concerns about the health implications for those present at the examination. But Roger Cox from the HPA said a large quantity of alpha radiation emitted from polonium-210 had been detected in Mr Litvinenko's urine."
Shades of Georgi Markov, a Soviet expatriate/dissident who was also assassinated in London. He was stabbed in the leg with a special spring-loaded umbrella that subcutaneously injected a metal pellet contaminated with ricin. They didn't even find the pellet until he was already dead, and it took some work to find out just what had killed him.
I wonder how they got the polonium into him. For a death this rapid, he'd pretty much have had to ingest it.
This was said before the postmortem and before Po poisoning was officially confirmed.
:-)
Before that the UK medics went through a list of at least 3-4 different hypothesis each of which proved to be loads of bull. Tallium, radioactive Tallium, strange objects in his intestines, etc you name it.
So at the point where Putin said it nothing was known yet. I have not heard what he said in Russian so it is also quite likely that some nuances have been lost in translation (like a "yet" at the end of the sentence).
As far as you noticing that his idea of violent death differs from our idea of violent death that is a definite. He would not have had his past job if this was not so.
It is quite interesting that AFAIK this is the first high profile poisoning with radioactive substance. Considering the guaranteed lethality and obvious ineptitude of the medics in diagnosing it I am surprised that this does not happen more often. Actually, probably it does, but using much smaller doses which end up in effects indistinguishable from cancer. If the dose was a small fraction of what he got he would have died quietly from leukemia 6 months from now. Whoever killed him wanted to make a point and also wanted the fingers to be pointed at the usual suspects.
Which makes me on a second thought post anonymously
I don't understand why of all things, they were using Polonium-210 to kill him. Since that's not exactly something you buy over the counter, wouldn't there be "better" ways of killing him by poisoning without drawing as much attention? Only about 100 grams of Polonium, any isotope, is estimated to be produced yearly and it's extremely rare in nature. It's hard to imagine a better way of drawing attention to the government.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I've come to the conclusion that the American illuminati hated the Russians because they were too alike, too close in methodology and goals, to the Americans. Now that all the ideology is stripped away, there really isn't much difference between the Bushes+the CIA and Putin+the KGB. Except that the Russians are so much better at the nasty stuff, as they aren't hampered by thinking of themselves as morally superior.
The ex-KGB boys used a poison that is produced at the rate of 10 grams per year worldwide. They didn't do it to be clever. They did it to send a message that they did it, there's nothing that can stop them, and when you fuck with Putin and the New Russian Order and you get a creative agonizing death.
Putin was behind it. So again with the reporter a few months ago. Protest, die.
Now that we know that our "ally" is putting the finishing trim on his capitalist dictatorship, how will our millionaire media airheads and our millionaire government respond? Do I hear crickets?
Barbarians compared to the US of course who indulge in no such activites..
Like rigging elections, assasinating democractically elected heads of state they don't agree with, invading countries for suggesting they might prefer to sell oil in Euros thus causing a huge run on the already weak dollar, selling arms and torture equipment to countries with appalling human rights records, wire-tapping their own citizens on a scale undreamed of by the most autocratic of regimes, collaborating with despots for profit, operating an institutionally rascist judicial systm, atempting to deny women rights fundamentally accepted as basic by the entire western world, accepting graft as a proxy for politic.. yadda yadda yadda..
I'm not saying the rest of the western world's any better.. the brits, the french, the israelis.. they're all doing their bits to help out f ck it all up.. but really.. it's the sheer bare-faced hypocrisy of the US that disappoints the most.. still.. we seem to be growing up slowly..
I've seen a few posts here asking "why use such an obvious method of killing someone?"
The answer is: it's very, very far from obvious. The mere fact that it's taken so long to work out what the poison was indicates how subtle Polonium poisoning is.
1. Based on the Wikipedia entry for Polonium, the dosage required is incredibly small. We're not talking milligrams, here; we're talking micrograms, or less. Just detecting such a tiny quantity distributed throughout the victim's body is going to be incredibly hard.
2. The poison won't produce discernable radiation outside the victim's body, either, because alpha radiation is so readily absorbed by tissue. (That's also what makes it such a good poison, of course.)
3. The thing with poisons is that you have to actually look for them. Polonium is such an unlikely poison - given its rarity and inherent handling hazards - that even considering it is far-fetched. The fact that the victim's urine contained helium was the only clue the pathologists had, and I think they deserve a huge amount of credit for getting from that result to polonium as the cause.
According to Justin Raimondo's analysis of the case, Litivenko is a raving lunatic whose accusations in general have been ridiculously unsubstantiated.
Therefore, the likelihood is that he was killed precisely to frame Putin for his murder, since he had no other value to anybody, apparently.
The assumption that Putin is behind it just because the individual was ex-KGB is a clear case of jumping to conclusions based on no evidence.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
You know this for a fact? How?
Certainly, it's possible...but there's no proof. Moreover, I fail to see how Litvinenko's very public death would benefit Putin. The old KGB apparat splintered into many pieces after the demise of the USSR. Some of them work for the present Russian government, some are self-employed, and some work for...other organizations. It's possible that Litvinenko's poking around was getting close to someone in the "Russian Mafia" who had the means to pull this off, or the motive may be something as banal as a personal grudge held by an ex-subordinate. Litvinenko certainly flouted one of the basic rules for enjoying a long life: avoid making enemies whenever possible. He not only had many enemies—his enemies were dangerous.
It does seem likely to me that Litvinenko's death can be attributed to the ex-KGB, if for no other reason than that they are one of the few organizations that would have had quantities of exotic poisons stashed away. The problem is which faction or members of the ex-KGB might be responsible. Russian mafia? Rogue clique within the present Russian secret police org? An old boy (or a whole pissed-off department of the defunct KGB) pulling in some favors and activating connections to finally get even? Insufficient facts, I'm afraid.
You might want to pick up Litvinenko's book: Blowing up Russia : Terror from Within.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
A link to the hardly unbiased Chechen Press, and a harmless video on YouTube of (shock horror) "a politician kissing a small child in public" are not quite what I would consider hard evidence.