See Correction Below

There has been a lot of news out today regarding the Po-210 trail which continues to conflict with the idea that Litvinenko was poisoned as part of an assassination attempt in the Pine Bar in the Millenium Hotel between 4:30 and 5:00 PM on November 1st. The primary problem is the trail extends well before this meeting in the bar between Litvinenko, Lugovoi, Kovtun and possibly one other unknown Russian (Sokolenko and his family showed up at the end as they headed out to the CSKA Moscow – Arsenal game).

We know Litvinenko met with Scaramella at the Itsu Sushi bar from 3:00 PM to about 3:45 PM. There is a claim by Berezovsky and others, who would have good reason to try and cover up a Po-210 smuggling operation, that Litvinenko dropped by Berezovsky’s offices. Here is the first map and timeline which has remained basically intact – except the time period for the Litvinenko visit in the Pine Bar (now down to 30 minutes, thought there may be a large window for the meeting). At a glance it looks like all the contamination sites are nearby each other. I do find it interesting Berezovsky’s home is noted on this map. This other map shows a little better how far out of the way Berezovsky’s office was from the Itsu restaurant to the Millenium Hotel. It also shows the supposed last stop of Litvinenko before he went home – the RISC Management security firm.

Now we are getting reports from the HPA that nearly 120 people have shown low levels of poisoning (if we wish to reserve the word ‘contamination’ for the situation where Po-210 is on the outside of the body and not ingested or inhaled). The media summarizes this information quite well:

Nearly one in five people tested for the radioactive substance which killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko showed signs of contamination, public health officials have said.

The Health Protection Agency examined urine samples from 596 people in the UK who feared they may have inadvertently got caught up in the poison bid.

Of those, 120 tested positive but only 13 were deemed to have any type of risk to their health.

…

The HPA is working with 48 different countries and has identified 450 people who may have been affected worldwide.

Actually around 50 of those tested positive were above the normal level of Po, but deemed not to have been in contact – but there is some debate about that conclusion. Anyway, what is clear is the number of people contaminated is not showing a sign of some isolated attack, but of a containment accident with people tracing the material around. We see this in the list of locations linked to the November 1 date:

Mr Litvinenko visited a number of venues in central London on the day that he fell ill. Among them was the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly and an Italian restaurant, also in Mayfair.

The news here is the last item – and confirms some suspicions I have had about what Litvinenko did during the day before he met Scaramella. First off, this restaurant was the last location mentioned as a contaminated site, and is the very same restaurant Berezovsky’s mouthpiece, Alex Goldfarb, was waiting with journalists to get the news of Litvinenko’s passing.

Clearly Litvinenko did not tell police he went to Pescatori Restaurant on the day of his travels because this site was just tested and identified in the last week or so – after authorities returned from the interviews with Kovtun and Lugovoi in Moscow. So when did this restaurant trip take place? Who was there? And if the people contaminated are also from the Itsu Resaurant then we have a trail of debri from a spill going back to before 3:00 PM and possibly all the way to 12:00 PM. What one should look at is this map and compare it to the timeline map above and one things jumps out – Dover Street, where the restaurant is, is within a few blocks of Berezovsky’s office. On the street map the yellow arrow indicates Dover St. Now click once on the left hand arrow to shift slightly westward and in the middle-upper left you will see Grosvenor square – where Berezovsky’s offices are. Corrections: My mistake. Grosvenor Square is the location of the two mystery security firms (RISC Management and Erinys) which have shown to be part of the Po-210 trail and tied to Litvinenko, Lugovoi and Kovtun. Berezovsky’s office is on Down Street – which is right above the “A4” on Picadilly St dead center on the map if you did the one click left. It onlys shows “DO” because the word “Metropolitan” lays over the rest of the word. – end correction His offices are indicated with the number “2” on the timeline map.

My theory has been that the contamination was in the Millenium Hotel room upstairs on the 4th floor earlier in the day, possibly with Litvinenko in the room picking up Kovtun and Lugovoi. The spill happens there and is clearly indicated by strong Po-210 in a spot on the carpet and on the light switch. Then the three went with Litvinenko to meet some security firms and possibly see Berezovsky. It is possible they stopped to eat at the restaurant, but Litvinenko decided to hold off eating until he met Scaramella at his favorite sushi bar (I can understand that choice).

The HPA is indicating people from all three sites may be caught up in the debri cloud that predates the Pine Bar meeting. In addition, it is assumed the assassin would use one method to poison Litvinenko. We know he was poisoned twice, once days or weeks before November 1st and this expanding trail. So why is it the first attempt did not show the same dispersion? Probably because Litvinenko was hit again when he came into the presence of the contraband (and possibly checking to see if it was there and in good shape) and then went straight home that time. Whatever the case, the trails do not look the same for both poisonings (as far as we know). And this leads me to think this could not be two forms of poisoning, but two differing levels of containment breaches.

Either way, if the trail of Po-210 goes back before the Scaramella meeting to another restaurant, then it is impossible for the Pine Bar to be the site of the poisoning.

Twice now Andrei Lugovoi has told reporters to wait until after January 15th before trying to get a statment from him. The first mention was here, in a bizarre cameo quote by Lugovoi in regards to the two week holiday period in Russia around Christmas and New Years:

“Call me after the 15th,” Andrei Lugovoi, a businessman and former K.G.B. agent at the center of the investigation into the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London, said when reached on Friday and asked about the status of the case. “We expect nothing to happen until after the 15th.”

The second mention was today as we learned Lugovoi has been discharged from the hospital (which is confirmation he is the lesser poisoned between himself and Kovtun):

A Russian former KGB bodyguard at the center of a probe into the murder of ex-agent Alexander Litvinenko has left hospital where he was treated for suspected radiation poisoning, Interfax news agency said on Tuesday.

…

“I am relaxing: call back in a couple of weeks,” he told Reuters by telephone when asked whether he had left hospital. He then cut the call short and did not take further calls.

I speculated a while back that Kovtun and Lugovoi in all likelihood entered into plea agreements with authorities in order to turn evidence on higher ups. This seems to be further confirmed by a recent statement by a lawyer for Lugovoi:

A lawyer to Andrei Lugovoi, one of the main witnesses in the former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Alexander Litvinenko poisoning case, insists that there are no grounds to day that Russian citizens may be involved as suspects.

…

“I am deeply convinced that Russian citizens cannot be involved in this case as suspects,” Romashov told Itar-Tass on Monday.

Add into this the statements by Scotland Yard that the people who poisoned Alexander Litvinenko will not stand trial in the UK we do seem to see evidence of this case coming to a major milestone. If Litvinenko was poisoned in a smuggling accident everything being reported would make sense. There could have been three victims of a smuggling accident (Litvinenko, Lugovoi and Kovtun).

The ‘accident’ could have been a rigged event, something meant to expose the smuggling ring. If some criminal element was actually a fair weather participant in the smuggling operation, they could have done some major damage by tampering with the contaiment device and causing the material to escape while it was in the hands of a rival element of the operation. That way the rival is exposed with his hands in the cookie jar and the rival could step in and take over.

The idea this is a civil war between criminal elements of the exiled Russian community is not a new theory. But what is new is a clear time table being reported to certain people. It would seem to indicate something pivotal is coming and Lugovoi will be freer to speak about what he knows after that event. The fact he is being coordinated with and is relaxing really gives me the impression his plea agreement is working to his advantage. Now the only question is who else is involved in this. Seems we may know sooner rather than later.

I see the Litvinenko investigation taking a very bizarre turn (read to the end please), as the media and authorities try to keep a grasp on the assassination theory and dismissing the possibility of a smuggling effort. We were one of the first sites to propose Litvinenko was not poisoned all at once but over a period of multiple exposures. And at the time I pointed out this would indicate a smuggling effort with Litvinenko repeatedly coming into contact with the contraband and being poisoned in stages. The evidence of this was the timing of the hair loss, which put one incident around the 16th of October and the first of three possible smuggling rounds of Polonium-210 which coincided with Lugovoi meeting Litvinenko and UK security firms.

Now we have further confirmation of the smuggling theory as the authorities now admit the poisoning was not a one time event:

Scotland Yard officers are also investigating whether the former spy was first poisoned with polonium-210 several days earlier than previously reported. Investigators believe Mr Litvinenko may have been contaminated twice, with the second attack taking place at a central London hotel several days after the first “hit”.

…

But detectives are understood to be investigating whether Mr Litvinenko was poisoned several days earlier. They are examining his movements and meetings, particularly with Russian contacts, in the previous days.

Toxicology results from Mr Litvinenko’s post-mortem examination revealed two “spikes” of radiation poisoning, suggesting he received two separate doses. The second attack is almost certain to have taken place at the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair. Eight hotel staff have tested positive for polonium-210. So has a tea cup.

Clearly the poisoning was the result of two (or more) exposures. And if one looks at the Polonium trail we can see where those happened, and the strongest footprint is in the Millenium Hotel room – not the Hotel’s Pine Bar. More people were contaminated in the Bar, but 7 out of 8 of those people were staff and probably exposed via the dishwasher in the kitchen – which was heavily contaminated. Nearly 100% of the staff (1 out of 8 escaped contamination) of the bar were poisoned at low levels. The fact is only 1 out of 250 patrons showed signs of contamination. There are scenarios which make sense if one looks at the bar only, but there is the problem of the massive contamination of the hotel room.

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check updates at the very end

I have been following the Litvinenko story from day one, and on day one I suspected it was not an assassination but the accidental exposure of a nuclear contraband smuggling effort. As we have watched the case and evidence unfold we have discovered more and more evidence that the case is not an assassination. I think we have finally hit critical mass, and I will get to that in a moment, but here is the summary: while the evidence has been building that this was not an assassination it comes down to basic chemistry. If the authorities do have a lead on the source that created the Poloniumn 210, as is being reported, this was not an assassination. That is because the metallic form required for such a trace could not be handled in the doses we see in Litvinenko as a poison. These two things cannot line up into a coherent picture.

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I decided to go back and review all the Health Protection Agency (HPA) notices that have come out since Litvinenko’s death and the realization he was poisoned by Polonium 210 to see what other details may have been hidden in these announcements. I was not dissappointed. In fact I suggest you read to the end, because the bits of new evidence culminate in an interesting statement regarding Litvinenko.

The more interesting announcements address questions and concerns from the public. The pattern of the trail is pretty clear: poisoning at any level (i.e., Polonium 210 in the body) seems to be at locations where the material was exposed to the air – not from bodily excretions. In fact, the risk from bodily excretions seems quite low. Here is one indication from HPA on why this is the case:

I live in the same household as someone who has a urine sample result showing elevated Polonium -210 levels. What is the risk to my health?

Normal social and household contact with people who may have elevated Polonium-210 levels in their urine are not a risk to others if good hygiene practices are followed. Only a tiny amount of Polonium -210 is excreted in body fluids and even then you would only be at risk of harm if you ingested it.

…

Does sweat contain Polonium-210 and if so how much?

Yes, but at very low levels similar to or less than other body fluids. It is typically 10 times less than those found in urine.

So first the Polonium needs to be sweated out in serious quantities, and then the material still needs to somehow be ingested or inhaled for poisoning. And in fact we see this in all the cases, with the possible exception of Marina Litvinenko. They all show very low contamination levels. But since Marina was dealing with a violently ill husband for a day or more it is not a surprising that she would be the exception.

Another indication to the form of the Po-210 that was trailed was this HPA statement:

How might I be affected by the Polonium-210 involved in this incident?

On the basis of the monitoring results received so far from a range of sites we believe that the risk to the general public of having been exposed to Po-210 is likely to be very low.

If Po-210 is present in the environment, it would need to enter people’s bodies to give them a radiation dose, again through ingestion, inhalation or through wound entry. Any people who may have inadvertently ingested or inhaled Po-210 will not present a hazard to other people nearby

Is it safe to travel on public transport in London?

On the basis of the monitoring results received so far from a number of locations in London as part of the on-going Po-210 investigations, the Health Protection Agency can reassure members of the public that the risk of having been exposed to Po-210 remains low. In the limited public areas where contamination has been found, this has been in small spots, where it is fixed and not easily transferred to hands or clothes.

So there was little dispersion in the public areas. My guess is other areas show a different pattern, and we can guess which places those may be. But it seem we are seeing a ‘spot’ of contamination in a form that doesn’t rub off easily onto hands or clothes. Was this because these spots were on the ground and simply not something easily made contact with? Or was this because the Po-210 was in a patch left over from a dried liquid salt solution? My guess is it may be a combination of the two. But the point is the heavy poisonings and contaminations seem to come in very unique circumstances – and basically behind closed doors.

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There is a new suspect in the Litvinenko incident – a Russian who travelled with Kovtun from Hamburg to London on November 1st and met up with Kovtun in London later that day. And now the admitting this incident is associated with smuggling of Polonium-210 into London

Detectives investigating the murder of Alexander Litvinenko are trying to trace a Russian businessman who flew to Britain at the same time as a consignment of deadly polonium-210 was allegedly smuggled into London.

The man was spotted on a flight from Hamburg sitting beside Dimtri Kovtun, another Russian whom German police are investigating for trafficking the radioactive material used to poison the former KGB spy.

Officers have studied CCTV footage from airports at Hamburg and London and are understood to believe that the two men were travelling together. However, the mystery figure disappeared after leaving Heathrow with Mr Kovtun. The name he used on the flight and the passport presented to immigration officials does not show up on any hotel register in the capital. It is believed that he met up again with Mr Kovtun in London on November 1, the day Litvinenko fell ill.

I can only repeat the facts. The dosage of Polonium-210 that killed Litvinenko was smaller than a grain of salt. There were evidentally three ‘consignments’ of Polonium-210 smuggled into London on Oct 16th, Oct 25th and Oct 31st-Nov 1st. It is incredibly doubtful the Polonium trail reported to date reflects even a fraction of one ‘consignment’, even if each one was the size of a sugar packet. So we have to assume there is more Polonium still to be found.

The fact auhtorities are giving out this information is interesting. It could mean they are on the trail of people that Lugovoi and Kovtun tipped authorities towards. If Kovtun and Lugovoi did enter into plea agreements, which seems reasonable, then who was this mystery man? My guess is they do not know, but he would be associated with the owner of the material being smuggled. If Lugovoi was heading up the smuggling itself, this person would be the eyes and ears of the person whose goods were being smuggled. And that person may be associated with Litvinenko or Berezovsky.

I find it interesting there is no record of this person in any hotels. That implies the man has a home and may be a resident of London or the surrounding area. He could be one of the thousands of Russian exiles in the UK. But it definitely seems leads were provided by Kovtun:

German police are puzzled why no polonium-210 was found on the Germanwings flight that Mr Kovtun and the mystery Russian travelled on to London.

Actually, the answer is quite obvious. It is possible the man with Kovtun contaminated him as they sat next to each other, or as the departed at the airport. There are a myriad of scenarios that could work. Including an effort to plant evidence on Kovtun as a diversion. But it seems the Polonium-210 took two independent paths to London:

The British team is reportedly still seeking more information from Mr Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy, his business partner. Polonium-210 was discovered on two British flights on which Mr Lugovoy travelled to London in October. On October 25, he took BA 875 and stayed at the Sheraton Park Lane. Radiation was found at both locations. It was also found on BA 872, which Mr Lugovoy took on October 31, and at the Millenium Hotel, in Grosvenor Square, where he and Mr Kovtun stayed and where they entertained Litvinenko.

Was it one consignment or two then? Clearly Lugovoi was contaminated on his two trips, and apparently on Oct 16th when he contaminated the Park Lane hotel.

Experts also isolated traces at a third hotel, the Parkes in Knightsbridge, where both men stayed during another trip to London from October 16 to 18 when they flew on Transaero, the Russian carrier.

The more trails the more Polonium that entered the UK in October.

It is interesting how the media swarm on the Litvinenko incident as died way down. I keep wondering what in the world caused the about face (besides competing stories on the modern Ripper). But some interesting new clues are slowly coming out, and I think everyone has decided to take a deep breath and stop jumping to wild conclusions and assassination theories. Well some are at least. I begin with a Boston Globe article which starts out with the implausible concept that Litvinenko was poisoned in the Millenium Bar, at the end of a 3 week long Polonium Trail that follows Litvinenko and Lugovoi to three hotels and numerous rooms at each hotel, to the offices of two UK security firms wanting to do business in Russia (named Erinys and RISC), to the Ishu sushi bar and a meeting with Scaramella, and to the offices of Boris Berezovsky. In between are trails left on planes between Moscow and London, and follow a third man through Hamburg Germany – Dmitri Kovtun. None of this extensive, earlier Polonium 210 trail is explained in the reporting by the Boston Globe:

With its warm oak paneling and imposing grand piano, the Pine Bar, tucked inside the Millennium Hotel in fashionable Mayfair, is a good place for a late-afternoon drink.

But it was here, in one of the most convivial corners of London, that police believe Alexander Litvinenko , a former Russian spy, was poisoned. Police believe that while Litvinenko met with some other Russians on Nov. 1, someone slipped him a radioactive substance, possibly into his cup of tea. Twenty-three days later, he was dead.

If police seem to know where Litvinenko was poisoned, they are still puzzled over why, and by whom.

The Boston Globe, or its sources, are woefully behind the reporting on this story. Which just underlines the fact that what is being reported as fact is actually very shakey when viewed in the whole context of information out there on the Polonium trail. But I did not want to dwell on more abysmal reporting by the mainstream media (no news there), but the real news that is being overlooked because the media’s baised preconceptions:

In a series of interviews, British police and intelligence officers explained the difficulties they are facing as they try to determine who poisoned Litvinenko and why. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, they expressed frustration at trying to sort out criminal, political, and business interests in Russia.

…

Perhaps just as Litvinenko’s killers hoped, British authorities suspect the use of such an exotic poison seems almost too obvious, meant to steer investigators in a particular direction.

As one police official put it, “Why not just shoot him in the head?”

But British authorities don’t accept that only those in the Russian intelligence services would have access to polonium-210, or the willingness to kill someone in such a chilling fashion. Indeed, the Kafkaesque confluence of spooks, both former and present, organized crime, and big business in Russia presents British officials with their biggest challenge.

Authorities are clearly not wedded to the assassination theory. It has many, many problems that cannot be easily knitted into a reasonably strong case. The admission that Polonium-210 is accessible to a broad range of suspects, not just the state, is a huge change in the dynamic of this case. The media is too wedded to their assassination theories to accurately reflect this sea change, but the actual quotes by authorities (ignoring the Globe’s editorializing in between quotes) is showing a big change of view.

What is coming to the fore is the under reported role of all these UK and Russian security firms. Firms that provide security for people and property that is travelling – many times across borders. The best cover for a smuggling operation that involves small quantities of valuable materials would be a security firm. And now the security firms are showing up in spades in a lot of reporting:

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It has become a very strange time indeed when I find myself in complete agreement with an anti-war liberal. In this case it is on the Litvinenko incident, and the argument laid out is an excellent synopsis of my posts on this matter. My impression of liberals has been inching upward recently, as I see clear examples of independent thinking and not accepting the PR that issues out of the mainstream media. This is a good sign to me that everyone is breaking their mental shackles that tie them to the error prone media giants.

A lot of people here who adhere to the theory that the Litvinenko incident was an assassination and not a smuggling effort have queried where is the money trail. It is clear a money trail will be the nail in the coffin for those thought to be involved with this incident because it is as clear an indicator of motive as one can find. So here is a glimpse into the money trail and it would, as much of the evidence to date has shown, not seem to reflect an assassination but look more like a smuggling effort:

A business partner of Shvets’, Karon von Gerhke-Thompson, believes Litvinenko got caught up in a web of double agents and crime that cost him his life. Investigators working on the case say they have “never seen so much money” being transferred in the intelligence business, she said.

Assassinations do not come out of ‘webs’, but smuggling nuclear contraband and a coup d’etat requires a web of coordinated organizations and people. I should also note that as the dosage Litvinenko apparently absorbed has shrunken in size, that has actually reduced the probability this was an assassination effort AND that the fatal dose was administered on Nov 1st.

I would strongly suggest people look over the comments in this previous post because the discussions there show that the Litvinenko could have been poisoned a week or two earlier than first suspected, given the time it took for his radiation poisoning symptoms to truly surface. The hair loss alone could be the indicator that Litvinenko was exposed over many weeks to the Polonium 210 and not in one massive dose as initially believed.

Also, the fact that Thallium was present in Litvinenko is another indication this was not a state run effort because the material doesn’t look to be industrial quality Polonium-210 but a cruder product that can be created in many nuclear facilities. Like those found in Iran and North Korea. I am hoping the readers who have been assessing this incident from a chemistry angle, along with those who are medical practitioners, will be helping to lay out a new picture based on the latest understanding of the material found in Litvinenko. I said many times his case would be the first in modern times to show how Polonium 210 kills (which is why I have had my doubts from day one anyone would chose the material as a weapon of assassination – it has been unproven until now).

The Russian news outlet Kommersant has the chilling recollections of Marina Litvinenko regarding the illness and death of her husband. It is a gruesome reminder of what the wrong material in the wrong hands is capable of doing. And the path to death was a terrible one, that is clear. It is a must read that, for us Americans, sends a shudder regarding medical care in the UK. The fact is Litvinenko was put off by medical services for many days by symptoms that would have landed him in a hospital under observation immediately here in the US.

There are some interestnig segments in the recoillection worth mentioning because thery could reflect on whether Litvinenko suspected what was happening:

On November 1 Sasha and I decided to have a family dinner in honor of the anniversary of our move to England. Sasha came home and didn’t even stop by to see Ahmed [Zakaev], the way he usually does. He went upstairs, checked some information on the internet, and then we had dinner together.

This is a very interesting version of events. Supposedly Litvinenko did talk to Zakaev (the Chechen leader in exile) since he got a ride home with him from his meetings in London. Did he stay over? No, but he definitely talked to him on the ride home. Or did he? And why go out of the way to mention this, except that it would be out of character for Litvinenko to not end his days meeting with Zakaev? Why is she bringing this point up?

And Litvinenko seems to be trying to dismiss his illness to his wife, even after a night of throwing up:

For a little while he looked a bit better, but he didn’t stop throwing up. It was so strange. And he kept trying to make jokes about it. He would come back from the bathroom and say, “Marina, something’s wrong, this is so weird. They’ve just dunked me in the toilet.” Can you imagine?

Once in the hospital the Litvinenkos kept thinking about why this was happening, and occassionally Alexander would mention the Millenium Hotel meeting. But around his wife he would then try and change the subject:

Those two meetings on November 1 that are being talked about so much now, he thought they were kind of strange. Strange because the meeting with Mario [Scaramella, an Italian businessman with whom Alexander Litvinenko met in a sushi bar on November 1] was absolutely inexplicable. Why? Sasha said that Mario had gotten everything he gave him through the internet. So Mario could have sent it all to Sasha by email. Sasha said that Mario was acting oddly, like he was really nervous and confused. The second meeting, with Lugovoi and Kovtun (Russian businessmen Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, whom Litvinenko met in the bar of London’s Millennium Mayfair hotel), immediately struck him as suspicious, but for some reason he chased his suspicions away. I don’t know why. He kept trying to find explanations… Maybe he thought that he would figure it out by himself later and didn’t want to discuss it with me.

We all know Scaramella is a very strange person in this mystery, and easily someone to keep an eye on. But the first thing that jumped out at me was the fact Litvinenko seemed in denial regarding the meeting at the Millenium Hotel. Note that it appears the reporter added the information that this was in the Pine Bar. But chronologically it seems this meeting was after the Scaramella meeting. If there were two meetings with Lugovoi and Kovtun then it is possible Litvinenko was trying to shield his wife from the work he was engaged in. Who knows. But it is interesting when the meeting comes up he continues to be in some kind of denial. Then there is the mystery man who shows up at this business meeting (which I doubt was held in the crowded bar right before the big game)

Kommersant: At that second meeting, the conversation was about the beginning of some kind of joint venture, some kind of business?

Yes. As I understood it, many Russians open businesses in England, and British people have questions for them – who are they, are they really who they say they are. They needed to check some information.

Kommersant: So the conversation was about some kind of consulting?

Absolutely, yes.

Kommersant: And they wanted to work together on it?

As I understood it, yes. I know Lugovoi. Kovtun appeared on the scene about a month before all this happened. I hadn’t heard anything about him before. Sasha did say one thing – that some guy he really didn’t like had turned up with Lugovoi. I can’t say for sure what we were talking about the time, but that was the phrase Sasha used. He said that he hadn’t liked the man because he had said something about how he doesn’t give a damn about anything in life except money.

This is very strange indeed. Sokolenko was with his family when he supposedly ran into the three men at the Pine Bar, so I doubt in the brief contact he had on the way to the game this kind of impression would be left. But again, if there was an earlier meeting and another person showed up, then that would be a different story.

And we can put to rest the notion Lugovoi was not associated with Berezovsky. Not only did Marina know Lugovoi for a long time, she met him once at an event I am sure only close associates of Berezvosky would be attending:

Lugovoi called once on my mobile after Sasha’s death. He left a voicemail saying, “Marina, this is Andrei Lugovoi. Everything that happened strikes me as very strange. I’ll do everything I can to figure it out.” I met Andrei only once, at a birthday party for Boris Abramovich [Berezovsky].

So Lugovoi not only meets with Berezovsky, he attends his parties as well.

But then things get really bizarre. Litvinenko had two poisonous elements in his ssytem – Thallium and Polonium.

So first the diagnosis was thallium, and then polonium?

Yes. His thallium level was three times higher than normal. And polonium… Sasha was checked for radiation, but it turned out later that the machine they had used only checked for gamma radiation coming off the skin. He had alpha radiation, which has a short wavelength [though not as short as that of gamma rays], and it was internal. That kind of radiation only showed up on a special and very complicated urine test.

Thallium is another by-product of Polonium manufacturing from Bismuth:

Subsequently it was reported that traces of thallium are commonly found with polonium: “A tiny amount of thallium, a common impurity in polonium and a poison in its own right, was also found (in Litvinenko’s body fluids). Polonium is typically made by bombarding bismuth-209, a heavy metal similar to antimony, with neutrons to make bismuth-210, which rapidly decays into polonium-210. But bismuth can also decay into thallium-206 — which is why polonium might have traces of thallium as well.”[17] But 206Tl has a very short half life of minutes so it is unlikely that any would have been present by the time is was brought into the UK. It is more likely that stable lead would be found as an impurity in the polonium used.

Well clearly something is not right given this Wikipedia entry and what was seen in Litvinenko’s pathology. The Thallium was showing up days after the poisoning and weeks after entry into the country. This is truly a complexing set of facts. I cannot find Thallium in Polonium decay process that doesn’t last more than a minute and a half. So was this stable Thallium mixed in?

I also find the fact that Litvinenko’s burns showed up in his mucus membranes all over his body a telling clue which indicates to me he inhaled the material as well as ingested it:

Later I was told that not only the mucus membranes in his mouth, but everywhere in his body were horribly inflamed and covered with blisters.

I am sure those with a medical background who read this blog will correct me, but it would seem Litvinenko ran into a cloud of this stuff when he was poisoned. This would explain the cigarette theories which were very prevelant in early reporting. I would expect to see inflammation in all the sweat ducts and eyes if the material was flushing through the bodily fluids, not just the mucus membranes. If I am right, it would seem difficult for this to be a poisoning. And the lack of poisoning to Litvinenko’s family, given days of throwing up before going to the hospital, would seem to also be inconsistent:

Kommersant: Were you tested?

The next day. And we already have the results, with documents certifying that Tolya, Sasha’s father, and other people who were close to him suffered no significant contamination. I am carrying a definite dose of polonium, but for the moment it’s not life-threatening. I can’t feel anything at all. They told me that my risk of getting sick is maybe one percent higher than normal.

I would assume that dealing with his illness the way it was he should have contaminated the place quite a lot. Then there is another aspect of this entire event which I felt was they key problem – the deliberate and overt PR campaign surrounding his illness:

When he told me that he wanted there to be a letter and a photograph, I was appalled. I definitely didn’t want him to be photographed in that state. I said, “Sasha, think about it, you’ll get well and then you’ll have to see these photographs.”

But he wanted to be photographed?

He was certain that both a written document and a photograph were necessary. And now I understand that it was only when the photograph appeared that everyone figured out that something terrible was going on.

This is where the story is inconsistent. Marina says they believed he would survive this ordeal. But clearly the picture and letter were designed to be released after his death. So it seems Litvinenko continued to hide his situation from his wife as he had done for years, not telling her what he was into and what was happening. The PR firm was brought in by Berezovsky, as was Goldfarb. Litvinenko and Berezovsky must have spent precious final moments of Litvinenko’s life planning the whole thing out – the PR campaign, the interviews, the timing.