Dec 10 2006
Trail Shows Kovtun Was Contaminated, Smuggler
Major Update: Well, one prediction of mine has been proven wrong. It seems Kovtun flew from Moscow to Hamburg first, and then onto London. One has to wonder why he would do this round-about route to get to London. Did he need to pick something up in Hamburg was he trying to provide an indepedent route for the material he was carrying?
Major Update: Some Polonium 210 must have come in from Germany with Kovtun since it is now pretty clear his trail begins prior to his trip to London:
German authorities said Sunday they have found traces of the rare radioactive substance polonium-210 at an apartment visited by a contact of poisoned ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko before they met in London.
Prosecutors said they were investigating Dmitry Kovtun on initial suspicion of improper handling of radioactive material, but said any connection with Litvinenko’s death was for British police to clarify.
Investigators said the Russian businessman visited his ex-wife’s Hamburg apartment the night before heading to London, where he met Litvinenko on November 1 — the day the former spy is believed to have fallen ill.
Litvinenko was killed by polonium-210. Gerald Kirchner of the German Federal Radiation Protection agency said at a news conference that tests on traces of radiation at the apartment “clearly show that it is polonium-210.”
Kovtun arrived in Hamburg from Moscow on October 28 on an Aeroflot flight, officials said.
This is some big news because the material is not coming in from Russia as suspected. As I noted below, there is a history of smuggling nuclear material out of Russia and Europe to the ME from Germany in the 1990’s (I will get a link here soon). So it would make sense this same network could reverse the flow now. And Oct 28th was not Kovtun’s first trip to London. He was with Lugovoi and Litvinenko on Oct 16th, which is associated with another hotel contamination in Knightsbridge.
Radiation was found on a couch where Kovtun is believed to have slept in his ex-wife’s apartment, on a document he brought to Hamburg immigration authorities and in the passenger seat of the BMW car that picked him up from Hamburg airport, police said.
This last item is also important. It seems Kovtun had simply stayed over between flights from someplace else on his way to London (thus the car contamination). And it seems the German police are being much more realistic in their reporting of events:
Prosecutor Martin Koehnke said Kovtun was not initially treated as a suspect because of the possibility that the polonium was inside his body.
Subsequently, Koehnke said, an investigation against him on suspicion of improper handling of radioactive material was begun “because at least at the moment, at this stage of the investigation, we have sufficient initial cause to believe that he brought the polonium traces to Hamburg outside his body, or that these traces are the result of contact with polonium 210.”
This confirms something else I have assumed – authorities can distinguish one form of contamination from the other. Therefore there is no doubt when something is being contaminated from a human vector (infected person) verses material itself being transported by someone (knowingly or unknowingly).
Addendum: OK, switched computers, had a crash and now recovering my research links. I am not going to try and synopsise these, instead I leave it for the readers to ingest. But these links give a picture of the nuclear smuggling history and paths.
First is this report on nuclear smuggling between 1995-2000 which speculates on the reasons for an apparent lull in activity during this period. Take special note on the Iridium smuggling into the UK that took place. And there was a case when material was smuggled from Russia into Germany which caused a big stir.
Second is this chronology of nuclear smuggling cases from 1993-1995. The third item of interest is this report on nuclear smuggling involving Turkey, which seems to be a gateway between Europe and the Middle East. The next link focuses in on a 2004 investigation in Switzerland regarding alleged nuclear smuggling activities. Next is this recent report regarding these same smuggling activities in Switzerland and how they relate to AQ Kahn’s nuclear black market activities which were linked to nuclear programs in Iran and Lybia. Next is a recent news report that one Boris Berezovsky is now under investigation in Switzerland for many laundering. Let me save here and see if I need to add some more links tying all this to Germany. But you will see Germany mentioned in many of these reports as one path of the smuggling paths used in the 1990s. The same time Kovtun moved to Germany to start his business. OK, one more on smuggling in general.
More: Here is a link between a German and AQ Kahn’s network, and here is a report from 1994 showing how Germany was the frontline for nuclear smuggling at that time. OK, that should establish the fact there is a case to be made this was a smuggling effort and a natural path was through existing resources and players. I would not be surprised to learn Kovtun had returned from some country near the mid-east on his way to London.
Even More: Link between Switzerland, Germany and AQ Kahn network. Details starting coming out at the trial as well.
– end update
Details released by German authorities indicate Kovtun was trailing Polonium-210.
Hamburg- German prosecutors have opened an inquiry against Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun for spreading radioactive polonium as he travelled through the city of Hamburg on October 30-31, senior prosecutor Martin Koehnke said Sunday. At a news conference in Hamburg, Koehnke said Kovtun was not yet being accused of the murder the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London three weeks later.
The suspicion of spreading a dangerous substance in Hamburg came after polonium-210 was found on a couch where Kovtun slept, on the passenger seat of a car in which he travelled and on an immigration document he personally signed at a German government office.
© 2006 dpa German Press Agency
The question now is how is it he did not get any in his own house. And of course we need to know when this was relative to Litvinenko’s poisoning. I have been researching smuggling paths for nuclear material and it turns out the Germany was in the 1990’s one such regular path out fo Russia. And of course there are paths to the ME as well. I would not be surprised if this Polonium-210 originated in Iran and found its way over old smuggling routes from the 1990’s into Europe. Experience ounts on these things. Kovtun and others could have been asociated with the export of material heading towards Iran and Pakistand and Libya.
CP – here’s a source: senior prosecutor Martin Koehnke said today, according to German media reports. He noted, an investigation against Kovtun on suspicion of improper handling of radioactive material was begun “because at least at the moment, at this stage of the investigation, we have sufficient initial cause to believe that he brought the polonium traces to Hamburg outside his body, or that these traces are the result of contact with polonium 210,” German TV news channel N24 reports
and then this:
Police and scientists said the polonium could have spread to Kovtun’s hands if he had handled a container of the poison, but also could also have reached his skin via sweat and saliva if he had ingested the poison. According to Deutsche Welle, Gerald Kirchner said that if it did come out of a container that was very carelessly done. At a news conference in Hamburg, Koehnke said Kovtun, was not yet being accused of the murder of Litvinenko, who died in London three weeks later, and it was possible that Kovtun was also a victim of polonium poisoning.
Axisnews
A fairly simple question would be:
Has any of the polonium contamination been in the form of metallic polonium or is it all in the form of some compound.
If in a compound, it would point more strongly toward a state hit as that is the form that would be provided to an assassin by someone who knew what they were doing.
If some of the contamination is in metallic form, it would point most strongly to smuggling. Any concoction of a compound in a hotel room using the metallic form initially would point to a hit by the smugglers themselves and not a state hit.
I would ask google for search results on polonium dating to before November 1.
Lizarde1, again, it gets answered with the question “what form was the polonium in”. If in a compound, it could be from a body fluid. If in pure metallic form, it is most likely from handling the metal consistant with smuggling.
CP – could there be some other reason other than assasination to turn the metal into a compound in a hotel room? For example to turn it into some kind of aerosol to be used in a closed room or other scary thoughts like that?
I still can’t tell for sure but it sure seems like the Germans have some evidence of the metal form
Yes, Lizarde1, it would seem they have metallic polonium. That would not be consistant with a form most likely used for poison. And yes, a hotel concoction could be an indication of the stuff having been mixed for dispersal. As I mentioned a several days ago, because of the nature of this stuff, it could have already been used as far as we know. We wouldn’t know until people start getting sick and there isn’t anything that can be done about it at that point. Even dosages too small to cause radiation poisoning could cause cancers to skyrocket over the course of a couple of years. And all it would take is a rain or snow to remove the evidence.
The use of polonium itself is a terrorist act. Someone either wanted it widely known that they had polonium and would use it by hitting someone whose death would get a tremendous amount of attention, or someone screwed up bigtime. I hope for the latter. Either way, I am afraid at this point it is only a matter of time before we see polonium used as a WMD.
If it hasn’t already been, that is.
An interesting thing about the timeline: Luguvoi arrived at the Millenium Oct. 31 and Kovtov did not fly in until the AM of Nov. 1 – going to search flights Hamburg-London to see by what time he could have arrived at the Millenium for a meeting around 10 am
Also, they both came in by different routes on different days but are both contaminated with polonium.
OK the German Wings route is Hamburg Gatwick and times are:
6:40 arrives 7:25 a.m. 6 days a week so he had plenty of time to get from the airport to th ehotel by 10
Also, if there was a chance that a smuggling ring is operating, the Russians would have every reason to want to talk to Boris.
OTOH they could have been poisoned, too, but in lesser amounts per the German report.
Or, as Lugovoy, whom the Russiand still will not allow to be interviewed, has said–he is being framed. One scenario is that they wanted suspicion to turn to them after the assassination because they hope to link Berezovsky into this.
OTOH, I think they may have been contaminated externally or poioned (not so much it seems) as a smokescreen.
“The use of polonium itself is a terrorist act.”
Yes, I agree. The presence of polonium-210 tself indicates “improper handling of radioactive materials” (the German charge) and the commission of a crime of some sort on German and British soil. Because of the volatility of the material involved, it should be handled and investigated as a terrorist act, regardless. For any country’s government to do less is to fail to sufficiently protect its citizens.
Clarice, if you’re right, then I hope Lugovoi and Kovtun don’t have to eat or drink anything in this Russian hospital, or it’s, “See! We told you they were too sick to talk…”
I think Lugovoy is being treated as an outpatient. I am not sure about Kovtun.
Mariposa et al: the other day it was reported that the Israeli secret service was flying to London to study how the stuff spread etc.
If we are dealing with polonium in the metallic form, I would be nearly certain that we are not dealing with a state assassination.
The reason is that polonium kills by alpha radiation. In order to kill someone with polonium-210 you need to get a certain number of atoms of it into their body. As these atoms of Po-210 decay into lead, they emit an alpha particle which is a highly ionizing form of radiation that damages cells.
It doesn’t matter of the atoms are in the pure metallic form or in a compound, the po-210 atoms are still unstable and still decay into lead. Polonium metal poses many challenges while a compound would mitigate many of these making the material safer to handle.
To provide an example. Say I had a radioactive form of sodium I wanted to get inside of someone. I could carry around pure sodium metal and attempt to slip some into food or something. An alternative might be to create a soluble salt (say sodium chloride … regular table salt). As anyone who has high school chemistry knows, walking around with sodium metal presents a challenge (different challenges than polonium metal would, but I am using sodium as an analog here). Carrying a few grains of salt would be much easier or a vial of salt-water easy too.
In the case of polonium it doesn’t matter what form you get the polonium into someone as long as it gets in there because it is the atoms of the polonium decaying that is the active killer here, not the form the polonium is in (metallic or compounded into a salt).
A state sponsored assassination using polonium would be done, I believe, with a compound of polonium that is easier to handle and transport than with the pure metallic element. It is my unprofessional opinion that pure metallic polonium would only be handled by someone trafficking in polonium and any existance of the metal would tend to support illicit traffic, not poisoning.
For Russia to “send a message”, it would not be important for the nature of the poison to be apparent, only that Litvinenko was poisoned. For all of these people to have been “dusted” with polonium to throw investigators off the track means that the killers had to know the polonium would be discovered. In fact, the dosing on Litvinenko with such a high dosage would tend to support the notion that someone wanted it known that polonium was used. That would not benefit the Russians if they indeed killed him with polonium. It would benefit the members of the smuggling ring if they suspected they were contaminated and needed to seek treatment. But in order to firmly point the finger at Russia, they needed Scaramella’s “hit list”. No contortions required. All the contamination seen so far tends to support a smuggling ring. Any contamination by metallic polonium would bolster that position and weaken any state assassination theory. The German report suggests metallic polonium.
Clarice – concerning Trepashkin, it seems he foresaw his transferal to a high-security prison. Apparently he answered questions passed to him by The Sunday Telegraph while he was in EK-13, a low-security jail in Nizhny Tagil in the Middle Urals region. According to Mosnews,
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/12/10/trepashkin.shtml
“Trepashkin has given The Sunday Telegraph revealing testimony in which he names a serving state security colonel as a key figure in the poisoning of the former spy Alexander Litvinenko. He named the colonel as one of four FSB security service officers who appeared in masks alongside Litvinenko at a 1998 press conference, when the former agent accused his superiors of ordering the assassination of the oligarch Boris Berezovsky… Trepashkin now expects to be transferred to a tougher prison for speaking out [about the colonel].”
Mosnews says that Trepashkin “has no history of making wild or exaggerated claims”, though I find it hard to believe that the ‘assassins’ did not realise that “the polonium 210 would act so quickly and leave a trail”, as Trepashkin allegedly states. On the other hand, the only reason that trail is now being found is because Litvinenko died so rapidly from a massive dose – did someone give him a little too much?
Okay… I have a question. Well, several, actually.
Would they be traveling around with an actual hunk of metal?
Wouldn’t it have to be shaped or designed somehow into a triggering device?
The other day there was a story posted about polonium-210 triggers being packed in foil with beryllium-9; is that what we’re talking about? If so, wouldn’t that be manufactured in a highly-specific lab used for creating radioactive weaponry?
Lizarde, yes, I remeber you or someone posting that about the Israelis, but lost track of which thread, so didn’t get back to see your cite.