Nov 30 2006
A Chechen Connection To Litvinenko’s Death?
New reader Lizarde noticed this truly interesting news item:
A week after the death of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko from suspected radiation poisoning, the Muswell Hill road in which he lived remained sealed off in two places after traces of radiation were discovered.
Polonium-210 has been found at the 43-year-old’s home in Osier Crescent, off Coppetts Road, where he lived with his wife Marina and their 12-year-old son.
Across the road, a car – believed to be a silver Mercedes belonging to a Russian-speaking neighbour who knew Mr Litvinenko well – had also been cordoned off yesterday with a white and blue tarpaulin placed over it.
So, who lives across the street from Litvinenko? A Chechen rebel leader in exile named Akhmed Zakayev.
Mr Litvinenko’s home, on a newly-built crescent of large middle-class homes in leafy, prosperous Muswell Hill, was under police guard last night.
Officers had erected a tent on the drive outside, covering the front door and Mr Litvinenko’s car. An England flag flew from the first floor balcony.
The crescent is also home to Akhmed Zakayev, the foreign minister of the Chechen government in exile, who lives just opposite Mr Litvinenko.
Berezovsky’s PR mouthpiece Alex Goldfarb implicated Litvinenko, Berezovsky and Zakayevas the true targets for the attack in a recent statement:
British mass media, including The Times, suspect that polonium-210 might have been sent to London by diplomatic mail from Russia, and that employee of Russian consulate in London Anatoly Kirov might have been involved. He arose suspicions first of all because his name was repeatedly mentioned by Litvinenko, who claimed that the diplomat is the intelligence officer spying on him. “Alexander said that Anatoly Kirov controls agent network which is spying on us: Boris Berezovsky, Akhmed Zakaev, Alexander Litvinenko, and me,†said Goldfarb.
It is truly, truly interesting that this car is now a possible site of contamination. Now in all fairness maybe Zakayev drove Litvinenko to the hospital the night he fell ill. So it is too early to over speculate (yes, I know I over speculate all the time). But it would seem this would implicate another possible member of a potential underground movement set to destabilize the West. I mentioned early on there was a possible Chechen connection because Litvinenko and Berezovsky were maniacally determined to claim all the Chechen attacks were actually the work of the Putin government (like the bizarre left here claims Bush-Cheney faked 9-11).
So who is Akhmed Zakayev? He is one very disturbing person:
Akhmed Zakayev, a former actor at Grozny theatre, became a Minister of Culture in the government of Dzokhar Dudayev. After the start of the First Chechen War he left his job and eventually became an important field commander of a Chechen resistance group. His group operated in the South West of the country with its headquarters in the town of Urus-Martan. In August 1996, Zakayev’s group took part in the Chechen recapture of Grozny, where he led the attack on the city’s Central Railway Station.
…
Zakayev was involved in negotiations with Russian representatives before and after the September 1999 Russian offensive. In the course of the Second Chechen War Zakayev briefly fought on the Chechen side. In 2000, after having been wounded, he left for abroad and turned into the most prominent representative of President Maskhadov in Western Europe.
Twice this man took up arms against Russia and allied himself with a Islamic terrorist group responsible for killing hundreds of school children (Beslan Massacre), the Moscow Theatre attack, downing two civilian airlines with bombs, and bombing four apartment buildings. That is like saying Al Qaeda leader Zawhiri is a moderate because he personally never carried out any attacks – he just leads Al Qaeda. He has been personally implicated in the Moscow Theatre attack. So I have my doubts this man is a sainted resistance fighter.
For the Chechens to break free they need to put a wedge between the UK and US and Russia. What better way than to link a nuclear attack back to Putin?
Or Boris drove the Chechen’s car. The more I dig into this the more chummy they all were.
An interview:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15975091/site/newsweek/
Another interesting article:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=516071
The Guardian;s latest theory, fits into the Am Spectator author’s theory..and it is one I can buy..the out of control thugs who work for Putin:
“Whether or not the Russian domestic security service, FSB, was directly involved in the recent killings, Vladimir Putin is ultimately responsible for creating a security milieu that encourages assassination as a political and personal weapon. By not being vigorous in his disavowal and investigation of the poisonings and murder in Russian political life, the dedicated judo champion has lost the initiative and thus leverage in his leadership.
Putin’s penchant for the establishment of the “Russian way,” the melding of Soviet central controls with elements of Western representational government and market economy, has created a Frankenstein monster. Russia’s recent economic success has been based to a great extent on an extraordinary increase in its oil and gas revenues. Without this spike the Putin years would have been deemed a failure.
After designating his successor Putin is hoping and planning to sit out the mandated four years after the next Russian presidential election, and then take over once more. No matter what it is called, it is nothing more than old time Soviet pragmatism played out in the charade of Putka’s version of Russian democracy. ”
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10691
“The KGB had a unit dedicated to assassinations and sabotage. Known variously as Department V and Department 13, the unit’s job was to eliminate Soviet political enemies and plan the destruction of strategically important roads, bridges and industry in countries like the U.S. and Britain.
Dubbed the “dark core†of the KGB, Department 13 officers were specialists in “wet work,†murders designated as “special actions†by the political chiefs of the old Soviet system. KGB assassins had access to a huge range of exotic weapons, including novel poisons and toxins—including radioactive Thallium, which is extremely similar to polonium 210—designed by the department’s own scientists inside what was known as the ‘Kamera’ or ‘Laboratory No.12.’
Department 13 actions were particularly vigorous when it came to exacting revenge on KGB spies who defected. And, in at least one case, that revenge came in the form of radioactive poisoning. Nikolai Khokhlov was a former Department 13 hit man who’d defected to the U.S. in the 1950s, blowing the lid on the KGB’s special assassinations squads and plots. But in 1957, three years after he fled, Khokhlov fell ill after drinking a cup of coffee that, he said, tasted odd.
Within 10 days, he was in a hospital suffering symptoms very similar to Litvinenko’s. Doctors eventually discovered he’d been poisoned with radioactive thallium that one of his former Department 13 colleagues had slipped into his coffee.
Fifty years later, as Litvinenko lay dying, doctors at first identified thallium as the poisonous culprit. By the time they discovered the true cause of the poisoning, Litvinenko was dead, the first person on record to have died from polonium exposure.”
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4203560.html?page=2
Whoever did it was the first to use a DIRTY BOMB in a major European city – a point nobody seems too excited about – ok short half life; hard to kill someone with; not a serious risk to those who came in contact with it etc etc – nonetheless – this is the first use of a radioactive substance for nefarious purposes (other than war and accidents) that I know of.
Isn’t thallium radioactive? If so, this is the second time. The first time was also an assassination of an ex-KGB agent (see post above).
Folks,
You are running wild with speculation (which is MY job!). The truth is the media reporting is contradictory with evidence and common sense.
First off, there are no traces of contamination prior to the Sushi Bar yet (with the exception of Berezovsky’s offices). That means there is not contamination traces coming into the UK – yet. We know from the Sushi Bar and the Millenium Hotel Bar (and Berezovsy’s office) that contamination was travelling external to Litvinenko’s body. Either through bodily fluids or particulate contamination from the moment he came into contact with the Polonium. Or both.
Timing is everything an you cannot violate the science to come up with theories. So here are the things that must fit into the timelines:
(1) Option 1 is particulate contamination which means the trail starts the minute the carrier moves and the particles start dropping like bread crumbs. The more sites the more bread crumbs required at the point of contamination. This puts physical contamination beginning with the initial contact.
(2) Option 2 is the ingestion of Polonium without any external particulate contamination. This means the only way to contaminate a location is for the Polonium to spend two hours traveling through the body until it starts ‘leaking’ through some bodily fluid. This would put physical contamination 2 hours after contact. Note that bodily fluid transfer could come with DNA material for identifying the carrier.
(3) Option 3 is a combination of 1 and 2. This is where early contamination is purely particulate until the Polonium in the body begins to seap out. Now you get particulate and bodily fluid transfers. This combination could be all Litvinenko or Litvinenko creating the bodily fluid trail and someone else creating the particulate trail.
(4) Forensics will know which site had which form of contamination.
(5) No one who contacted Livtvinenko ingested the Polonium in their body (all clear of contamination so far). However, these people could become a secondary tansfer mechanism by either getting particulate or bodily fluid contamination from Litvinenko.
(6) It is clear one or more of the Russians Litvinenko met in the Millenium Hotel (after the Sushi Bar meeting with Scaramella) were contaminated externally by Litvinenko. This is obvious because Litvinenko was already contaminated before he got to the Millenium Hotel (Sush Bar and Berezovsky’s office visit both predate the Millenium Hotel meeting). The traces found in their rooms, their airplane seat and the overhead bin clearly show clothes picked up the contamination – most likely the jackets worn by the men and placed in the overhead compartments for flight. Contamination on a flight can only be clearly linked to the post contamination period after Nov 1. There MAY be an in-bound contamination, but there is no way to tell at this time.
(7) The farther the contamination spreads the more source material was present during the initial contamination. We just don’t know if it was all ingested or a combination of ingested and particles on something external to Litvinenko.
(8) The particulate contamination may be from Litvinenko or not. Contamination from Litvinenko, even if passed on to someone else, should have some biological tag which could trace to Litvinenko (e.g., DNA).
(9) We need to know when the Berezovsky offices were contaminated. It happened either prior to or after the Sushi Bar event. It is clear they were contaminated prior to the Millenium Hotel meeting with the Russians. Timelines that put the Russian meeting as the first incident are in complete violation of the reported timeline.
People should have fun speculating, but if the theory violates any of these there should be a really good explanation as to why and some hard evidence to prove it. For example, there is no evidence or reporting showing any contamination on in bound flights. There is only the possibility of contamination on the outbound flight(s) of the Russians Litvinenko met at the Hotel. There is no indication the contamination happened on flights to Moscow or too/from some other city.
What I can’t get out of my mind is if this was the Russians, why target Litveninko? He is a minor player compared to the other two. Why would they tip off Berezovsky and Zakeyev that they could kill someone so easily. These two are a much more liability to the Russians than Litvenenko.
Interesting about the Moscow-Arsenal footbal match and the group of suspicious Russians on a quick trip to the UK (nice battle analogy for a poisoning), I think this was after the sushi bar meeting however – so we’re left with the trail as is.
What is the relationship between Boris B. and the “Russian mafia?” These are former KGB now back in the government, or disaffected anti-Putin Russians? Seems like they’d be on the same chaotic side as BB, why kill off Boris’ friend?
Gaidar’s symptoms sound more chemical than radiological to me, immediate bleeding and unconsciousness. Some noxious chemical or toxin I’d say.
As someone with an Irish heritage I’m feeling like I should go visit the old country, sounds like things are hopping there.
AJ–
You need to differentiate some of these Chechens.
Here is an article about this.
http://www.cdi.org/russia/326-9.cfm
You might check out what the scholar Peter Reddaway says about Maskhadov versus Basaev.
The Russians toppled an elected Chechen, President Maskhadov.
He was a moderate Muslim who had been a Soviet military officer.
Finally he was killed, but the real terrorist Basaev is still active.
He was not considered a terrorist by our government.
He did want independence and did fight the Russians, but not by attacking Beslan’s school or by attacking non-combatants.
Maskhadov actually supported the US invasion of Iraq.
The Russians have done of lot of really horrible things in Chechnya to civilians. Their tactics have been really terrorist.
Not all Chechens who were against the Russians were Al Qaeda-allied terrorists.
There is some evidence that these apartments blown up in Russia were blown up by state security. For one thing, some state security were arrested with explosives by the police. They claimed it was a drill or something.
In an Middle Eastern country a Russian was murdered and some Russian intelligence officers were arrested and found guilty.
I talked to a former American Intelligence official who once worked in the former USSR. He thinks Putin poisoned Litvinenko and did it in an obvious way to intimidate his opposition.
Putin can be a pretty crude guy. He once said that he would kill his enemies while they were “sh***ing in the outhouse.”
A whole lot of Putin’s critics have been killed.
AJ–
You are falling for Russian propaganda re the Chechens:
“Mr Putin portrays the war as a fight against Islamic fundamentalism and international terrorism. In reality it stems from Chechen nationalism, a force with deep historical roots.”
See the rest here :
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/news/ft-5-12-05a.html
According to this article, the Wahabbi forces in Chechnya have connections to the Russian state security.
http://jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=11&issue_id=490&article_id=22701