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British Police Identify Killer in Radiation Case

Posted by Zonk on from the hercule-poirot-to-the-white-phone-please dept.

reporter writes "According to a front-page story by The Guardian, British authorities have identified Andrei Lugovoi to be the murderer who used radioactive pollonium-210 to kill Andrei Litvinenko. The British government will ask Moscow to extradite Lugovoi. The Guardian states: 'Associates of the dead man have repeatedly accused President Vladimir Putin's government of being behind his murder, a claim the Kremlin rejects. While it is known that detectives believe they have uncovered evidence pointing to Mr Lugovoi's involvement, it is not clear whether they have established a motive for the murder'"

9 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Tracked by his radioactive trail by spun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Haha! Busted. He left a radioactive trail all over London, even in an airplane he travelled on. He's the only person who can be tied to all the locations they've found traces of radioactive polonium. Of course, he's claiming someone set him up by following him around and dropping the stuff wherever he went. We'll see if the Russians will hand him over. If they don't, it's gonna look mighty suspicious. If they do, he's gonna say Putin put him up to it, whether he did or not.

    The UK may have to hand over a scummy billionaire who profited immensely off of the rush to privatize Russia, which would be cool: two scumbags busted for the price of one.

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    1. Re:Tracked by his radioactive trail by residue · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Berezovsky is actually not a scumbag -- he never did anything outrageously illegal, just the usual machinations necessary in a lawless nation like Russia to make any money. Contrast this with the Stalin-esque purgings of dissenting voices that are rampant in Russia these days.

      At the same time, he has stood for the liberalization of the media and government structures, for which he was ordered exterminated by Litvinenko. In a tyrannical atmosphere that is Russia right now, that deserves a lot of credit.

  2. Implications for British Power by TigerTim · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think this is a real test case of whether the notion of the UK as a nation holds any actual power in the World. The Russian constitution, as I understand it, obliges the Russian government NOT to render Russian citizens for extradition, despite the fact that in Britain the defendent will assuredly recieve a fair trial (either in the UK or by analogy to the Lockerbie case, in a third country).

    If the Russian government DID sponsor an assassination within British territory, it is an affront to our sovereignty and should be exposed. If on the other hand it was NOT, then it is equally desirable that the Russian government be cleared of that.

    If the UK does not take a strong, principled stand on this issue, then I feel that our identity of "British" is very probably meaningless.

  3. It's just politics and diplomacy by 91degrees · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I suspect the Russian government knows full well that the British Government can't hand over Boris Berezovsky. That's why they're likely to make the request. It's not, on the face of it, unreasonable. Just legally impossible. But Britain's "refusal" to hand him over will mean that Russia has a better bargaining position. They can push Britain into offering an alternative of greater value.

    1. Re:It's just politics and diplomacy by ParraCida · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No way in hell is the UK going to give something to Russia in this particular case. I mean, just imagine the situation if the UK now pulls of some sort of exchange with Russia for this guy: he's going to continue denying that he did it, even if found guilty Russia will deny all allegations and accuse the brittish government for orchestrating these false charges, they get to have Litvinenko dead AND they get something else in return for someone they don't really care about anyway.

      Fact of the matter is, Russia trounced on the UK's sovereignty and did it with a lot of noise. The UK essentially got humiliated and they are going to have to apply negative leverage over Russia in order to get that guy in order to save face. Since the UK actually is a lot more powerful economically speaking and have a lot more say in organizations such as the WTO and EU they are in a position to put a lot of hurt on Russia for this, if they would really want too.

  4. A better question by thule · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Should it even be a homicide investigation or a smuggling investigation? Why would anyone poison someone with many more times the amount required to kill them with a material that is so expensive and easy to trace? There are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay easier ways to kill someone. Ways that would garner much less attention.

    Why poison the person multiple times when one time would be enough? We know it's multiple times because the police believe it to be multiple exposures. How would they know this unless the decay or signatures were different between exposures?

    The amount is very puzzling. The amount is a huge amount of the material. It was so much that it left a blemish in the tea cup. Something on orders of 100 watts of heat from the Po-210.

    I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but it seems to me there has to be much more to this story. What were these guys really up to?

    1. Re:A better question by thule · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why multiple exposures? Why so sloppy? Why use so much? They could have used a *much*, *much*, *much* smaller amount and still have made the same statement. Why was there so much of the stuff all around, but only a small amount (by a large measure) made it into the target of the assassination? It just doesn't add up. It seems like these guys were up to something else.

  5. Mod Parent Up by Valdrax · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Already, the Russians are claiming that it's against their Constitution to allow extraditions. (Read the last paragraph in the article.)

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  6. Litvinenko's Book by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As detailed in Litvinenko's book (with Yuri Felshtinsky) published right after he was poisoned to death _Blowing Up Russia_, Russia's KGB (by whatever new name disguises it) has been working against the conversion to democracy, especially since KGB exec Putin replaced Yeltsin the drunken reformer. According to Litvinenko before he died (reported in the book), he was being chased and then killed for reporting on the faked 1999 "apartment bombings" in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia which the KGB staged to get Yeltsin to invade Chechnya on the pretext of "Islamic terrorism". The book is banned (and was confiscated) in Russia.

    "Think. It ain't illegal yet." - George Clinton with Funkadelic

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