A BALLAD
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by Sweejak » Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:16 am
by seemslikeadream » Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:57 am
by Sweejak » Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:46 pm
The Russians, who are more hip to conspiracy theory than those decadent progressives in the decadent West (largely because the long-suffering Russian people don’t have the luxury of ignoring the truth because it doesn’t match the color of their political drapes), know all about that stuff, including the idea that the Russian government blew up buildings in Moscow in order to help Putin get elected. Revelations about Putin’s dirty tricks would increase Putin’s popularity in Russia.
wheels within wheels
it has thrown a flickering light on the borders of the shadowlands, a pale fire in which we can dimly perceive the ugly machinations, the violence and deceit, the crime and corruption that lie beneath the gilded images of the movers and shakers of the world.
by Sweejak » Fri Dec 01, 2006 2:05 pm
Russia has had no British enquiries on Litvinenko
MOSCOW, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Russia has not received any formal enquiries from Britain about the death in London of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, Interfax news agency quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Friday. Litvinenko, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, died in London last week. The radioactive substance polonium 210 was found in his body and Litvinenko accused Putin of being behind his killing.
Russia has rejected any link to Litvinenko's death and vowed to cooperate with British investigators who had said they might have questions for Russia.
"We cannot understand the daily reminders ... about questions for Russia," Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying during a visit to Jordan. "There are none."
"That is something British foreign minister Margaret Beckett has definitely told me and the ball is now in Britain's court," he added."
Itar-Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying Russia was still ready to offer its assistance in the investigation into Litvinenko's death.
"When questions are formulated and sent through existing channels, we will consider them in detail," he said.
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Former Russian politician Yegor Gaidar, being treated in a Russian hospital for a mystery illness after collapsing at a conference in Ireland last week, was ill before he arrived, a conference attendee said on Friday.
"I was there when he was taken ill, or when his illness reached its peak basically," said Seamus Martin, a former Moscow correspondent for The Irish Times newspaper, who was at the conference in Maynooth in Ireland last week.
"He had been complaining of being ill right from the very start of that morning but he collapsed at about half five in the evening," Martin told Irish broadcaster RTE.
He said one of Gaidar's entourage was "very clear" that the architect of Russia's market reforms was feeling ill on his way to Dublin, "particularly during a stopover at Budapest airport".
Irish detectives are investigating the ex-politician's movements before his collapse, which came after the death from radiation poisoning of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko in Britain.
They said inquiries into Gaidar's illness, which Russian doctors are at a loss to explain, according to Gaidar's aides, had uncovered no public health risk.
Gaidar, 50, a former acting prime minister who is now an influential academic, was taken to hospital after he collapsed during a visit to Ireland last Friday to publicise his new book. He was later moved to a Moscow hospital.
His illness followed the death of Litvinenko, who accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of killing him. The Kremlin has denied any link to the death.
Martin said reports from Moscow saying Gaidar was unconscious for three hours were "patently untrue".
"He was speaking to the ambulance men when he was taken by ambulance and unconscious people are very unlikely to be talking to people when they walk into an ambulance," Martin said.
by Sweejak » Fri Dec 01, 2006 2:07 pm
MOSCOW. Nov 30 (Interfax-AVN) - It is unlikely that traces of radiation detected on board several British Airways planes could have been emitted by polonium-210, Russian Chemical Security Union President Lev Fyodorov told Interfax Thursday.
"For a trace of polonium-210 to be left at some place or other, it needs to be either scattered or spilt if it exists in a dissolved state. However, this all is quite dangerous, primarily for those who could resort to such a step," he said.
... "The specifics of this element mean that you cannot just take it into your hand and put into someone's glass like poison, because in this case the person carrying it himself will inevitably die. Therefore, when somebody says that Litvinenko could have received a fatal dose of polonium, for instance, through a handshake, this is sheer nonsense," he said.
If polonium-210 was used a poison, it would be logical to fully exclude the involvement of another person as a mediating agent, Fyodorov said.
... "If a person inhales polonium, several micrograms would be lethal. If the same dose penetrates the body, a person's internal organs would be exposed and a person would certainly notice - in fact, he or she would develop radiation sickness," he said.
If they have found traces of polonium on board the planes, it must have been metal particles or solutions, he said. Radioactive substances might have been taken on board the plane accidentally, for instance, on the clothing or luggage of a passenger.
Izvestia
December 1, 2006
LITVINENKO HAD BECOME DANGEROUS FOR BEREZOVSKY
And three other theories about the mysterious events in London
Four theories about the Litvinenko poisoning
Author: Elena Ovcharenko, Vladimir Demchenko
[Police have reconstructed Alexander Litvinenko's movements on
November 1. He went to see Boris Berezovsky; he bought some
newspapers; he met with Andrei Lugovoi at the Millennium Hotel. He
met with Mario Scaramella at a sushi bar. Then he visited a
security firm - and that's when he started feeling ill.]
Mario Scaramella, the Italian who met with Alexander
Litvinenko on November 1 - the day the former KGB officer was
poisoned with polonium-210 - has revealed some details about the
meeting. Scaramella's words offer support for one of the theories
we presented earlier: that Litvinenko was involved in the black
market for nuclear materials. But police investigators aren't
rejecting some other theories either. Today we shall attempt to
look at all of them.
Scotland Yard detectives have some new questions for Boris
Berezovsky concerning the "Alexander Litvinenko death case." They
are interested in learning why Litvinenko visited Berezovsky's
office on the morning of November 1 - before his meeting with
Mario Scaramella. There is every reason to believe that at the
time of that morning visit, the radioactive polonium-210 was
either in Berezovsky's office or being carried by Litvinenko
himself.
Police have now reconstructed practically all of Litvinenko's
movements on that day. He went to see Berezovsky; he bought some newspapers in Piccadilly; he met with businessman Andrei Lugovoi at the Millennium Hotel. Then he met with Scaramella at Itsu, a Japanese restaurant. Then he visited a security firm - and that's when he started feeling ill.
Traces of polonium-210 have been found at all these locations
- but Berezovsky's office was first on the list. Now the oligarch
will be questioned again, and this questioning session is unlikely
to be an easy one for him.
Scotland Yard's professionals may soon determine exactly what
happened in the mysterious story of Litvinenko's death. Meanwhile,
all kinds of theories are still being considered.
First theory: Litvinenko was dealing in radioactive materials
We looked at this theory in our last issue. Traces of
polonium-210 were left everywhere Litvinenko went on November 1 - but none of the people he had contact with were poisoned. This
suggests that Litvinenko had the polonium on him. He was carrying
it around London and even showing it to some people, in an attempt
to sell it.
Some unexpected evidence in favor of this theory emerged
yesterday. Scaramella said that Litvinenko had told him, in
detail, about participating in a number of operations aimed at
selling radioactive materials abroad. This allegedly started when
he was still working for the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Why did Litvinenko reveal this to Scaramella? According to
initial reports, Scaramella brought Litvinenko some sort of
documents related to the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. However, it
subsequently turned out that there weren't any documents - only an
e-mail in which some Chechens and Russians threatened Scaramella.
So he went to consult Litvinenko. Instead of advice, however, he
got the story of Litvinenko acting as a courier for radioactive
isotopes.
Most likely, Scaramella will gradually remember some other
details of his meeting with Litvinenko. Perhaps the threats were
linked to the black market for radioactive materials. Perhaps the
threats came from people connected with Litvinenko, and Scaramella
had some sort of contacts with potential polonium buyers, so
Litvinenko brought the polonium to the restaurant in order to show
it to Scaramella - and told the story of his glorious past as
proof.
If this is the case, Scaramella was lucky. By the time he met
with Litvinenko, radiation was leaking from the container of
polonium. This may be why Scaramella reacted as he did on learning
of Litvinenko's death: he rushed from Italy to London, demanded
urgent medical tests on himself, and agreed to cooperate with
Scotland Yard.
It wouldn't be surprising if Litvinenko took to dealing in
nuclear materials. As everyone knows, Berezovsky - who took
Litvinenko under his wing after the former officer fled Russia -
doesn't like to waste his money. He provided Litvinenko with a
small home on the outskirts of London and a modest income. This
was probably payment for specific actions of some sort. But
Litvinenko was still short of money, and had to find another job
on the side. Polonium-210 is a very expensive isotope, and there's
a lot of money to be made from it. It is sold openly in the United
States, but only to laboratories and only in small doses - tens of
thousands of times less than the amount required to poison a human
being or the amount required for use in a nuclear reaction.
We can't rule out the possibility that Litvinenko's
plutonium-dealing may have been carried out under Berezovsky's
direct supervision. Suffice it to recall that Litvinenko left his
first trace of polonium in Berezovsky's office. In that case,
Litvinenko may have been only a courier delivering some dangerous
goods. He may have gone abroad to bring back the polonium (surely
it's no coincidence that one of the places he visited on November
1 was a security firm that provides security for trips abroad).
Second theory: building a portable nuclear bomb for Chechen
guerrillas
Eighteen months ago, Berezovsky was saying that the Chechen
guerrillas had a portable nuclear bomb. According to him, iall it
lacked was "a small component" to make it ready for use.
Allegedly, Berezovsky even reported this to FSB Director Nikolai
Patrushev at the time.
Now it may turn out that Berezovsky, who used to cooperate
with Shamil Basayev and has provided a refuge for separatist envoy
Akhmed Zakayev, wasn't bluffing about the bomb. And the minor
detail that the terrorists needed in order to possess a functional
nuclear weapon may have been the polonium-210 that killed
Litvinenko. According to the experts we approached for comments,
this isotope can be used in a neutron detonator for a nuclear
bomb. And we can't rule out the possibility that Litvinenko may
have been buying it, not selling it.
But there's also another scenario. If the bomb had been
assembled in an underground laboratory somewhere in London,
Litvinenko may have been its "curator" - and he may have been
poisoned due to some sort of accident or emergency situation. If
that were the case, however, those who assembled the bomb would
have been poisoned as well, and the presence of other victims
probably couldn't be concealed.
At any rate, if the bomb theory is correct, Litvinenko's
death was his final service to his motherland.
Third theory: Litvinenko was planning to betray Berezovsky
Another theory is that Litvinenko was eliminated because he
posed a potential threat to his patron. Litvinenko knew about
practically all of Berezovsky's activities over the past few
years. In recent months, he had become Berezovsky's eyes, ears,
and hands; practically all of Berezovsky's contacts went through
Litvinenko. He could have been an invaluable source of information
for the Prosecutor General's Office, whihc is trying to get
Berezovsky extradited to Russia. What's more, there was nothing to
prevent Litvinenko from returning to Russia; he wasn't even on the
wanted list, he only had a suspended sentence. Of course,
Litvinenko had remained loyal to his boss for several years - but
times change.
It's an open secret that Berezovsky's situation has become
substantially more difficult in the past few months. At a Moscow
conference, European Union law enforcement agencies were working
on some new legislation in the area of extraditing criminals; a
Prosecutor General's Office delegation headed by Deputy Prosecutor
General Alexander Zvyagintsev visited London and signed a
cooperation memorandum.
In the meantime, it was reported that Litvinenko visited
Moscow secretly and gave evidence about the Politkovskaya murder.
This allegation was reported in only one newspaper. The Prosecutor
General's Office denied it immediately, and all observers
dismissed it as crazy.
But is that really true? Can we really rule out the
possibility that Litvinenko, sensing that his patron would soon be
extradited, may have been investigating options for his own return
to Russia? It's unlikely that he visited Moscow, but can we rule
out the possibility that he had a meeting in London with someone
from the Prosecutor General's Office delegation, and the newspaper
that reported this simply mixed something up? Even the hint of
such contacts taking place would have sufficed to make Berezovsky
seriously alarmed, to put it mildly. If the chief witness to all
of Berezovsky's turbulent activities had decided to talk, it would
have meant disaster for the oligarch.
Think about where the first traces of polonium were found.
Think about the fact that Litvinenko also visited a security firm
that day. Perhaps his conversation with Berezovsky that morning
turned unpleasant. Perhaps, after that conversation, Litvinenko
feared for his life and tried to hire some bodyguards. But it was
too late.
Revenge by the special services
It is said that the special services never forgive defectors.
What if they really were ordered to "get rid of the traitor"?
Remember the special operation that eliminated Zelimkhan
Yandarbiev. He was killed, and then Moscow spent 11 months in
difficult negotiations with Qatar to ensure that the convicted
Russian citizens were returned to Russia. Moreover, it is known
that Russia went through diplomatic channels to involve the
leaders of several other countries with great influence on the
leader of Qatar. Naturally, after the Russian citizens were
arrested, there was a worldwide outcry about a "freedom-fighter"
being killed. That's an unpleasant effect. But these
"international excesses" were justified by the key point of the
operation: Yandarbiev was still and active participant in "the
terrorist leadership of Ickeria." As Khattab was killed and
efforts to capture Aslan Maskhadov continued, there was an
increasing likelihood of Yandarbiev eventually becoming the leader
of the Chechen separatists.
But Litvinenko was a pawn. What's more, he was a damaged
pawn, long since taken out of play. He wasn't really doing
anything. There was no reason for Moscow to get involved in an
international scandal for the sake of eliminating Litvinenko.
What's more, London is also the location of Akhmed Zakayev - a far
more substantial figure than Litvinenko - and other defectors who
have done far more damage to Russia: Gordiyevsky and Rezun
(Suvorov).
But maybe the act of revenge didn't involve any orders from
the top. It might have been organized by Litvinenko's former
fellow officers - those he betrayed to British intelligence.
Actually, Litvinenko really did do that. It's standard practice
among the special services to spend several months questioning any
defector in detail, obtaining the names and other details of all
his colleagues throughout his period of training and active
service. However, their names are then added to the blacklist of
people denied entry to Britain or other European states with which
the British intelligence services mainain close contact. So
there's practically no chance that one of them could have come
from Russia to London for "personal revenge" purposes. Even if
some Russian officer with a grudge had made such an attempt, it
would surely have been detected by British counter-intelligence;
they might even have let him enter the country, but he would have
been strictly monitored, and Litvinenko would still be alive. Even
less likely is the scenario of some "acquaintance" contacting
Litvinenko and proposing to come to Britain and give him some
compromising materials.
by non-amnesia » Sat Dec 02, 2006 8:32 am
by Sweejak » Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:44 pm
... we find it ironic that the oligarchs who used to buy influence abroad with oil money are now having their freedom sold for the same coin.
by non-amnesia » Sat Dec 02, 2006 8:25 pm
by Sweejak » Sun Dec 03, 2006 12:42 am
Strange stroll around Hyde Park that went nowhere
Julia Svetlichnaja recalls Litvinenko's eccentric behaviour
Sunday December 3, 2006
The Observer
We first met beside the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. Wearing dark glasses and leather jacket, Alexander Litvinenko appeared unexpectedly behind my back, saying: 'I was watching you from around the corner. You are not a spy, are you?' I suggested coffee in the nearby Caffe Nero, the first of our often chaotic, erratic conversations we would share from last April until his death.
I asked various questions about the Chechen people in Moscow during the Eighties and Nineties. Litvinenko, though, leapt from one exotic story to another - secret operations in Afghanistan, a plot against Boris Yeltsin, the assassination of former Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev; all these memories still seemed dear to his heart. In the end I made my excuses and left.
Article continues
'Try him, but filter what he says; the man rambles too much,' the exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky had earlier warned me. Litvinenko was the contact who, I had hoped, would introduce me to Akhmed Zakayev, a member of the officially unrecognised Chechen government in exile.
Ultimately, however, I almost regretted giving my email to Litvinenko. From our first meeting he started to feed me information with such gusto that in the weeks before his death I had started deleting most of his messages without opening them.
The next time we met, in the summer, we ended up walking around Hyde Park for hours. I started to wonder whether meeting Litvinenko was a waste of time. He told me shamelessly of his blackmailing plans aimed at Russian oligarchs. 'They have got enough, why not to share? I will do it officially,' he said. After two hours of traipsing around the park, I suggested we sit down somewhere. 'Professionals never sit and talk, they walk and walk around so nobody can overhear their conversation,' he muttered darkly.
So we carried on walking, Litvinenko regaling me with more stories about his war against the Kremlin. 'Every time I publish something on the Chechen press website, I piss them off. One day they will understand who I am!' he said.
Some of his emails were confidential documents from the FSB, the successor to the KGB; others were his own writings for the Chechen press. Many of his 'political' texts were too obviously rants to take seriously: one of his wildest claims was that Putin was a paedophile.
The photographs he sent were equally contradictory - one showed him with Zakayev and Anna Politkovskaya. Next he sent me a striking picture of himself in front of a large Union flag, holding a Chechen sword and wearing FSB gauntlets - Litvinenko said this proclaimed his pride in his new British citizenship.
The next meeting, in May, was arranged to take place at Litvinenko's home in Muswell Hill, north London, where we were supposed to be joined by Zakayev, but he did not turn up.
Litvinenko proudly told me how well his son was adapting to England and its language while he could barely string a few sentences together. Marina, his wife, served us dinner and tea with traditional Russian sweets. Afterwards, we moved to the garden and eventually to Litvinenko's study, where he showed me his stash of secret files and photographs. It was very late when he drove me to the station. He stopped at the traffic lights and, indicating right, suddenly turned left into a dark alley. We drove round and round the crescent before stopping.
'Demonstration. I was famous for getting rid of the "tail". All you have to do is to indicate and then turn the other way,' he explained.
We sat in his car for another hour talking about life in the FSB. I felt sorry for him. People around him seemed either deranged or were using him for their advantage.
Despite his whistleblower past, Litvinenko was confident he was safe. Unlike Zakayev, he willingly gave out his mobile phone number and home address. He did not have any security. Although, in October 2004, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into Zakayev and Litvinenko's neighbouring homes in Muswell Hill, he never contemplated moving house.
May was the last time I saw him. Later I heard he had been poisoned and I am ashamed to say I thought it might have been another trick to get attention. After that I watched and read the details of his slow death drip into the media as the polonium 210 rotted him from within.
Would Litvinenko be pleased with the paradox that since his death he has been taken very seriously?
Strange stroll around Hyde Park that went nowhere.
Revealed: Litvinenko's Russian 'blackmail plot'
· Poison victim 'had intelligence files'
· FBI probe KGB agent over new claims
See exclusive new pictures of Alexander Litvinenko
Mark Townsend, Jamie Doward, Tom Parfitt in Moscow and Barbara McMahon in Rome
Sunday December 3, 2006
The Observer
Alexander Litvinenko with a Scottish bonnet, Chechen swords and KGB gauntlets. Photograph: Copyright Guardian News and Media. All rights reserved. To buy or license these pictures contact Eyevine: 07876 747540/davidl@eyevine.com
The FBI has been dragged into the investigation of Alexander Litvinenko's death after details emerged that he had planned to make tens of thousands of pounds blackmailing senior Russian spies and business figures.
The Observer has obtained remarkable testimony from a Russian academic, Julia Svetlichnaja, who met Litvinenko earlier this year and received more than 100 emails from him. In a series of interviews, she reveals that the former Russian secret agent had documents from the FSB, the Russian agency formerly known as the KGB. He had asked Svetlichnaja, who is based in London, to enter into a business deal with him and 'make money'.
Article continues
Litvinenko also handed a series of pictures of himself to Svetlichnaja that are published by The Observer today. One shows him with murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another serving as an army officer in an elite Russian army unit two decades ago and the third draped in the Union flag celebrating getting his British passport just before he was poisoned.
We can also reveal that Scotland Yard officers involved in the investigation travelled to Washington to interview a former KGB agent, Yuri Shvets, who said he had vital information. He was a contact of Mario Scaramella, the Italian security consultant being treated at London's University College Hospital after having been found to have been contaminated with polonium. His doctors said yesterday that he did not appear to be suffering from radiation poisoning.
'I believe I have a lead that can explain what happened,' Shvets confirmed last week before he was interviewed as a witness in the presence of FBI agents. Shvets, who lives in Virginia and is now apparently in hiding, declined to elaborate. However, a business associate of Shvets, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Observer that Litvinenko had claimed in the weeks before his death that he possessed a dossier containing damaging revelations about the Kremlin and its relationship with the Yukos oil company. The associate claimed that Shvets compiled the dossier.
Yukos was once owned by the oligarch Mikhail Khordorkovsky, who is serving seven years in a Russian jail for tax evasion. His supporters say he was convicted as a result of a show trial orchestrated by the Kremlin.
The claims that Litvinenko had a dossier containing damaging information about the Kremlin echo separate claims he made to Svetlichnaja, who interviewed the former KGB agent earlier this year for a book she is writing about Chechnya.
In today's Observer, Svetlichnaja, a politics student at the University of Westminster, says Litvinenko claimed he had access to Russian intelligence documents containing information on individuals and companies that had fallen foul of the Kremlin.
'He told me he was going to blackmail or sell sensitive information about all kinds of powerful people, including oligarchs, corrupt officials and sources in the Kremlin,' she said. 'He mentioned a figure of £10,000 that they would pay each time to stop him broadcasting these FSB documents. Litvinenko was short of money and was adamant that he could obtain any files he wanted.'
Litvinenko's access to such documents could have made him an enemy of both big business interests and the Kremlin. However, his claims are almost impossible to verify and some political analysts have gone as far as to dismiss him as a fantasist.
Shvets, 53, emerges as yet another character in an espionage saga linking Britain, Italy, the US and Russia. Like Litvinenko, Shvets worked for the Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, whom the Kremlin has tried unsuccessfully to extradite from Britain. Shvets was a KGB major between 1980 and 1990, during which time he worked undercover in Washington as a correspondent for the Russian news agency, Tass. He emigrated to the US in 1993 and wrote a book about his experiences.
Shvets met Scaramella in Washington last year to discuss the Italian's role as a consultant to the Mitrokhin commission, set up by the Italian government to investigate Russian infiltration during the Cold War. It has been alleged that Scaramella discussed with the commission's chief, Paolo Guzzanti, whether they should look for evidence that Romano Prodi, Italy's Prime Minister, was linked to the KGB. Prodi denies any link.
Last night another link connecting the worlds of Italian politics and Russian intelligence emerged. Gerard Batten, an MEP for the UK Independence Party, confirmed Litvinenko had told him a man called 'Sokolov', who worked undercover as a Russian agent in the Seventies as a reporter for Tass, was the key link between senior Italian politicians and the KGB.
This week Scotland Yard will interview two Russians who met Litvinenko on the same day he had lunch with Scaramella. Andrei Lugovoy, a former agent with the FSB, and Dmitry Kovtun met Litvinenko in the Millennium Mayfair hotel. Traces of polonium have been found on the planes on which they are believed to have travelled between London and Moscow.
We have a new allegation from a Balkan news agency:
London. Traces of radiation, emitted by the substance used to poison Alexander Litvinenko were found in the car of the emissary of the Chechen separatists in London Ahmed Zakayev, Daily Telegraph reports in its online edition.
The main suspect for the poisoning continues to be the Russian businessman and former security agent Andrey Lugovoy and his companion, who met with Litvinenko in the day he was poisoned.
Oddly, I can't find any such story on the Daily Telegraph site. Lugovoy was, among many other shady things, the security head for exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky -- who has every motive to try to bring down Russian president Putin.
by non-amnesia » Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:06 am
by seemslikeadream » Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:03 am
by seemslikeadream » Sun Dec 03, 2006 4:04 pm
by seemslikeadream » Sun Dec 03, 2006 4:40 pm
by greencrow0 » Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:39 pm
by greencrow0 » Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:41 pm
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