Read article--The Crossroads of History: The Struggle against Jihad and Supremacist Ideologies

"....The true challenge of Islamic supremacism to America and the free world is not about Islam, Islamism, or terrorism, but about us.

It is a historic challenge to determine whether we truly have the courage of our convictions on equality and liberty and we are willing to fight for these ideals, or if we will instead accept the continuing growth of anti-freedom ideologies here and around the world...."

Col. Alexander Litvinenko

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11 November to 20 November 2006

Kremlin gave order to kill dissident and former spy, claims top defector

Michael Binyon, Times of London, 20 November 2006

Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned on the direct orders of the Kremlin because of his biting mockery of President Putin, according to a former Soviet spy now living in Britain.

Oleg Gordievsky, the most senior KGB officer to defect to Britain, said that the attempt to kill Mr Litvinenko had been state-sponsored. It was carried out by a Russian friend and former colleague who had been recruited secretly in prison by the FSB, the successor to the KGB. The Italian who allegedly put poison in Mr Litvinenko’s sushi “had nothing to do with it”.

“Of course it is state-sponsored. He was such an obvious enemy. Only the KGB is able to do this. The poison was very sophisticated. They have done this before — they poisoned Anna Politkovskaya (the campaigning journalist murdered on October 7) on a plane last year. Who else would know where she was sitting and could poison her food? Probably also it was the KGB that shot her.”

Mr Litvinenko, who fled to Britain in 2001, was a target because of the Kremlin fury at his sarcastic attacks on President Putin, Mr Gordievsky said. “There are three people they hate: Boris Berezovsky, Akhmad Zakayev and Sasha (Alexander) Litvinenko, who was writing article after article for the Chechen press, laughing at Putin.”

Mr Gordievsky, a former KGB station head in London, who still refers to the FSB by its former name, insisted that he did not know the identity of the Russian would-be killer. But he assumed that the man was a former associate of Boris Berezovsky, the former oligarch and Yeltsin confidant, who has been granted political asylum in Britain.

“He used to be in Mr Berezovsky’s entourage and was imprisoned in Moscow. Then suddenly he was released, and soon after that he became a businessman and a millionaire. It is all very suspicious. But the KGB has recruited agents in prisons and camps since the 1930s. That is how they work.”

The man came to London, posing as a businessman and a friend. He met Mr Litvinenko at a hotel and put poison in his tea. That was before Mr Litvinenko had lunch at a Japanese restaurant with the Italian he knew as Mario, who had arranged to meet him because he said he had information about the murder of Ms Politkovskaya, a close friend.

“Why should this Italian do it? I know him. He is a solid, respectable man. And Sasha was already feeling unwell before the lunch. He was poisoned before he met the Italian.” Mario Scaramella, a consultant for a commission investigating FSB activities in Italy, was last night reported to be in protective custody “terrified for his life”.

Mr Gordievsky is a close friend of the victim, who lived in North London and regularly visited Mr Gordievsky’s house in Godalming, Surrey. Talking exclusively to The Times, he painted a sad picture of the former lieutenant-colonel in the FSB. “He is rather lonely, like me. But he has a tremendous respect for me, as a British agent. He used to report to me, asking for my advice. “He said Britain was a solid, intelligent and beautiful state, with no corruption as in Russia, and he was very dedicated to it.”

Mr Gordievsky said he could not go into the details of why Mr Litvinenko had agreed to meet his would-be killer. “His wife, Marina is reluctant to speak about it. It is all very hurtful, as he was a former friend. But now all that has been left to the police, and they have told his family not to talk about it.”

According to Mr Gordievsky, Mr Litvinenko began to feel ill that evening. His wife called an ambulance. The crew thought that he had food poisoning and give him pills. But his condition deteriorated so the next morning they called an ambulance again. “It was only on the tenth day in hospital that the doctors realised it was not food poisoning. When his hair began to fall out they did toxicology tests, and found that his body contained three times the fatal dose of thallium,” he said. Mr Litvinenko lives close to Mr Zakayev, a close friend who suspected poisoning. It was Mr Zakayev who put the details of the case on the internet, Mr Gordievsky said.

Why did it take so long to report the poisoning to the police? “Because British doctors are not familiar with such poisons. He went to the doctor, who gave him antibiotics. His wife and son kept telling the doctor that he had been poisoned, but the doctor said it was just a reaction to the antibiotics. But now he has had very good treatment for the past three days in the hospital.”

John Henry, a clinical toxicologist who examined Mr Litvinenko on Saturday, said that the former spy was quite seriously sick. “There’s no doubt that he’s been poisoned by thallium, and it probably dates back to November 1, when he first started to get ill,” he told the BBC.

Mr Gordievsky said those planning the murder would have to have had permission from the top.

Mr Litvinenko fled to Britain after being imprisoned for a second time. In May 2005 The Times reported how someone pushed a pram containing petrol bombs at the front door of his London home. The attempted assassination left him “shaken but unhurt”.

Mr Gordievsky said he was fourth — now third — on the Kremlin hitlist. The KGB had not been able to reach Boris Berezovsky as he was always surrounded by bodyguards.

Mr Zakayev, the Chechen actor whom Moscow wants to extradite on terrorism charges, had no protection at home, Mr Gordievsky said, but was protected by Mr Berezovsky’s bodyguards when he went out.

What about Mr Gordievsky’s own safety? “What can I do? They can always get me by shooting. But this is a small community in this country. We look after each other. So probably that is my only hope.”

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Case of the poisoned spy puts Kremlin in the dock

Richard Beeston and Michael Evans, Times of London, 20 November 2006

Britain will be plunged into its worst crisis with Russia since President Putin came to power if a Scotland Yard investigation into the poisoning of a former Russian security agent leads back to the Kremlin, diplomats said last night. Alexander Litvinenko, reported yesterday to look “like a ghost” in hospital, had been targeted and bugged for months by intelligence officers from the Russian Embassy in Kensington, his friends and associates said. His mobile phone calls and e-mails had been intercepted. The Kremlin was accused directly by his associates of being behind an apparent move to eliminate him.

He was poisoned because of his fierce and fearless mockery of President Putin, it was claimed. Oleg Gordievsky, the most senior KGB agent to defect to Britain, said that the attempt to kill Mr Litvinenko was state-sponsored. He insisted that it was carried out by a Russian former colleague who had been recruited in prison by the FSB, the successor to the KGB.

Amid huge concern in diplomatic circles about the accusations of Kremlin involvement, the Foreign Office was awaiting anxiously the results of the police investigation on the apparent attack on a man who is now a British citizen. Scotland Yard said that it was investigating a “suspicious poisoning”.

Mr Litvinenko is under armed guard in hospital and has only a 50 per cent chance of survival, according to friends. Mr Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, 44, said: “His bone marrow is destroyed. I may need a donor to save his life.”

He was apparently poisoned with thallium, a highly toxic chemical once used in rat killer, after a secret meeting with an associate in London. The hospital described his his condition as “serious but stable”. Professor John Henry, a leading toxicologist, who examined Mr Litvinenko on Saturday, said he believed that he had been given a potentially lethal dose.

Police want to question two people whom Mr Litvenko met on the day of the alleged poisoning. One is a Russian man who talked to the exile over a cup of tea at an hotel and the other is an Italian academic whom he met at a sushi bar.

The Foreign Office said that it had not approached the Russian authorities yet, but was waiting for the outcome of the Scotland Yard investigation. “We will wait until the facts are known,” a spokesman said.

Britain has been involved in a number of diplomatic spats with Russia over the past decade, usually involving espionage. But sources close to the Foreign Office said last night that Mr Litvinenko’s case was far more serious and could lead to the most serious diplomatic incident with Moscow since Mr Putin came to power more than six years ago.

“We are not talking about a routine espionage dispute,” the source said. “This time we are dealing with the attempted murder of a foreign national in a foreign country using methods that we know the Russians are widely capable of. If we get something solid to link this with Moscow it would be taken very seriously. These are the sort of methods normally used by terrorists.”

British intelligence is aware of other thallium attacks elsewhere in Europe involving Russian agents, The Times was told. An official said: “We have to keep an open mind at this stage and not jump to conclusions. It may be that some criminal or other underworld organisation was involved, as opposed to something even more sinister directly linked to the Russian intelligence service. How this is going to affect future relations with the Russians we have yet to see.”

Mr Litvinenko was first taken ill on November 1 during a day that included a meeting with an Italian contact at a sushi bar in Piccadilly.

The two met because the Italian, named as Mario Scaramella, had e-mailed him to say that he had new information on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the 48-year-old investigative reporter shot dead in Moscow last month.

Mr Litvinenko ordered the food and the Italian handed over documents that mentioned people who could be linked to the reporter’s murder. The Russian told friends that he felt the first effects of the poison when he got home because he fell down. Friends believe the meeting was genuine. There is no suspicion that the restaurant was involved.

Mr Gordievsky revealed that he had warned Mr Litvinenko on several occasions that he was risking his life by taking such a public anti-Moscow stance. “But he always said to me that he would know whenever he faced the enemy and that he would be able to deal with it,” Mr Gordievsky said.

Kremlin watchers said that Russian intelligence had become far more aggressive in its operations abroad since the rise of Mr Putin, himself a former KGB officer.

“It is not a secret that poisoning has become some kind of a trademark of a secret war in Russia,” Alexander Golts, a political commentator, said. “I will not take the risk of accusing the Government . . . but certain groups have quite overtly been eliminating people they disliked through poisoning.” Mr Putin’s opponents in London said that it was now time to take serious measures to stop the Kremlin. “What happened on British soil on November 1 is the result of the condoning and lacklustre attitude of the Western governments to the state terrorism policy perpetrated by Russia,” Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen separatist leader living in exile in London, said.

Alex Goldfarb, a friend of Mr Litvinenko, and a leading figure in a Russian civil rights organisation in New York, said: “He looks terrible. He looks like an old man . . . a month ago he was a fit, handsome, young man.”

Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian billionaire, said: “I couldn’t believe it when I saw him. He has lost all of his hair. He is a very ill man.”

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Poisoned: spy who quit Russia for Britain

David Leppard, Times of London, 19 November 2006

 

SCOTLAND YARD is investigating a suspected plot to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain by poisoning him with thallium, the deadly metal. Aleksander Litvinenko, who defected to Britain six years ago, is fighting for his life in a London hospital. A toxicology test at Guy’s hospital last Thursday confirmed the presence of the odourless, tasteless poison.A medical report obtained by The Sunday Times shows that he has three times the maximum limit in his body, a potentially fatal dose. It is as yet unclear how the poison was administered, but on the day he became ill his family say he had a meal with a mysterious Italian contact.

Friends of Litvinenko, a former lieutenant-colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), are convinced that he is the victim of a murder attempt by former colleagues. They regard it as similar to the plot in which Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian dissident, was killed in 1978 with a poison-tipped umbrella on Waterloo Bridge in London.

Scotland Yard detectives have been liaising with consultants at Barnet hospital, north London, who have been treating Litvinenko since the poisoning on November 1, the anniversary of his defection. A police spokesman confirmed an inquiry had been launched last week: “The Specialist Crime Directorate are investigating a suspicious poisoning.”

Supplies of thallium in Britain are highly restricted and cases of poisoning are extremely rare. One gram is enough to kill even the fittest of men and Litvinenko, 43, has all the symptoms of the poison, which can be diagnosed only after at least two weeks.

He has kidney damage, is constantly vomiting and has lost all his hair. He has also suffered severe damage to his bone marrow and an almost total loss of white blood cells which are vital to the immune system. Doctors say these latter symptoms could suggest the presence of a second unknown agent in a potentially lethal “cocktail”.

In an interview last week at his bedside in the cancer ward of Barnet hospital, where he was being treated under a different name, Litvinenko said he believed it was a murder plot to avenge his defection.

“They probably thought I would be dead from heart failure by the third day,” he said. “I do feel very bad. I’ve never felt like this before — like my life is hanging on the ropes.”

Litvinenko claimed political asylum in 2000 and was granted British citizenship last month. One of the highest profile defectors from the FSB, he is on the wanted list in Moscow where he has made powerful enemies with his criticism of President Vladimir Putin.

Last month Litvinenko received an unexpected e-mail from a man he knew as Mario, an acquaintance he had made in Italy. The Italian said he wanted to meet him in London because he had some important information about the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian investigative journalist who was killed in the lift of her Moscow apartment block.

Litvinenko was a friend of Politkovskaya, one of the Kremlin’s most powerful critics, particularly over the war in Chechnya. “We met at Piccadilly Circus,” said Litvinenko. “Mario said he wanted to sit down to talk to me, so I suggested we go to a Japanese restaurant nearby.

“I ordered lunch but he ate nothing. He appeared to be very nervous. He handed me a four-page document which he said he wanted me to read right away. It contained a list of names of people, including FSB officers, who were purported to be connected with the journalist’s murder.

“The document was an e-mail but it was not an official document. I couldn’t understand why he had to come all the way to London to give it to me. He could have e-mailed it to me.”

After the meeting the Italian had simply “disappeared”, although Litvinenko emphasised that he was not in a position to accuse him of involvement in his poisoning.

That night Litvinenko became violently ill. His wife Marina, 44, said: “At first I thought it was just a bug but then he started vomiting. But it wasn’t normal vomiting.”

She said her husband is a fit man who often runs three miles a day. He had no previous record of medical problems. He was admitted to Barnet hospital on the third day. Nine days ago, his condition suddenly deteriorated and he lost all his hair. Doctors say Litvinenko has not eaten for 18 days and is receiving what little nourishment he can take via an intravenous drip.

Russian and East European agents have a history of using poisons to attack their enemies. Markov was poisoned with ricin and died three days later. More recently Victor Yuschenko suffered facial disfigurement after being poisoned with suspected dioxin as he campaigned for the presidency of Ukraine.  

Litvinenko, a specialist in fighting organised crime, came to prominence in 1998 after he accused the Russian authorities of trying to kill Boris Berezovsky, a tycoon close to Boris Yeltsin, who was then president.

He claims he was drummed out of the spy agency and subjected to harassment to punish him for speaking out. He was arrested twice on what he says were trumped up charges. Although he was acquitted, he spent months in Moscow prisons.

In 2000 he was arrested for a third time on charges of faking evidence in an investigation. Friends told him he was unlikely to escape lightly under the Putin regime. Litvinenko decided to flee before he was arrested. Stripped by the authorities of his passport, he ended up in Turkey where he joined Marina and their son Anatoly, who had flown from Moscow on tourist visas. They came to Britain and claimed asylum. He has been a thorn in Moscow’s side ever since.

Marina said she was hoping to find a bone marrow donor to save her husband’s life. Doctors have moved him to another hospital offering more specialised treatment and police have taken his family into protective custody.

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Russian defector poisoned in London 'on orders of Moscow'

The Independent, 19 November 2006, By Sophie Goodchild and Ian Griggs in London, Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Peter Popham in Rome

In a real-life drama straight out of a Le Carré novel, former agent has lunch with a mysterious informant in Piccadilly, is told of official plot behind journalist's murder - and then, within hours, collapses in agony

A Russian security service defector is in a critical condition at a London hospital after being poisoned in a plot worthy of a Cold War novel by John le Carré. Alexander Litvinenko, a former lieutenant-colonel with Russia's FSB security service and a staunch critic of Vladimir Putin's regime, fled to Britain in 2000, saying he feared for his life. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police said he was in a "serious but stable" condition after tests confirmed traces of rat poison called thallium in his body .

The 44-year-old defector, who was sentenced in absentia for treason in Russia, was taken to hospital when he began vomiting violently. His hair has also fallen out and it is understood his kidneys have been damaged by the effects of the dose of thallium. The heavy metal, which is hard to obtain in the UK, damages the nervous system and lungs. Colourless and odourless, it is used in rat poisons in the Middle East.

Mr Litvinenko has told associates he became ill after lunching in a sushi restaurant in London on 1 November, the sixth anniversary of his arrival in Britain. He gained full British citizenship last month.

The defector's lunch companion was an Italian information-peddler called Mario Scaramella, who is alleged to have links with Russian intelligence. He is said to have given Mr Litvinenko documents purporting to show that Russian agents were implicated in the murder of the Russian investigative reporter, Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot in Moscow last month.

Ms Politkovskaya was best known for her revelations about Russian abuses in Chechnya, a cause Mr Litvinenko had taken up. Last week an internet news agency, Chechenpress, published an interview with him. He refused to say who he believed had poisoned him, but said the documents he was given named FSB agents in connection with the journalist's murder.

"Judging by these documents, the tracks of the murder of Politkovskaya are leading to the Russian FSB," he said. He promised to hand the documents to Ms Politkovskaya's paper, Novaya Gazeta, when he recovers, but a specialist told the IoS yesterday that his chances of survival were "50-50" based on the levels of poison that he has ingested.

Professor John Henry, a toxicologist at St Mary's Hospital in London, said that thallium is used in heart scans to record information on blood supply, but can be lethal. "It [thallium] hits everything at once but different parts of the body take different times to crumble. It can affect the heart and the effects are extremely painful."

The former security agent became seriously ill within two hours of the meeting with Mr Scaramella. There is no suggestion that Mr Scaramella had anything to do with the poisoning. Mr Litvinenko believes the toxin was in a cup of coffee. Police are thought to have him under heavy guard, fearing further attempts on his life.

"We can confirm that officers from the specialist crime directorate are investigating a suspicious poisoning," said a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police. "No arrests have been made."

Mr Litvinenko is wanted in Russia on charges that he exceeded his authority while in the FSB and illegally stored explosives at his home. He denies the charges, and has said they are fabricated.

He has been a controversial figure in Russia since he claimed in 1998 that his FSB bosses had ordered him to assassinate the Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky. He fell out with the Kremlin and fled to Britain, where he was given political asylum. The FSB categorically denied the claim.

In 2003 the former security officer tipped off Scotland Yard about what he said was a plot to kill President Vladimir Putin. The police arrested two Russians, but released them a few days later on condition that they returned to Moscow.

Over the years he has levelled serious charges against his former spymasters. He wrote a book alleging the security service blew up Moscow apartment blocks in 1999, killing hundreds, and framed Chechen separatists for the crime. He has also suggested the terrorists responsible for the 2004 Beslan school siege may have been carrying out FSB orders, and that al-Qa'ida's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is a former KGB agent.

Poisons: The deadly toxins, from ricin to dioxin

Political poisonings appear to have one factor in common - nobody believes the victim, at first. Georgi Markov, above, the Bulgarian dissident who was stabbed in the leg on Waterloo Bridge in 1978, encountered scepticism when he claimed he had been a target of Bulgarian secret agents. But after his death three days later, it emerged that a specially adapted umbrella had been used to inject him with the deadly ricin poison.

Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko, was mocked by opponents when he said he had been poisoned during the 2004 election campaign. Tests showed he had been dosed with dioxin, a nerve agent which disfigured him.

In South Africa, Steve Biko, the anti-apartheid activist who died in custody in 1977, was allegedly poisoned with thallium. There were claims of a plot to use the same poison on Nelson Mandela when he was on Robben Island.

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British police probe ex-spy's poisoning

TARIQ PANJA, Associated Press, November 19, 2006

LONDON - A former Russian spy poisoned in Britain and now hospitalized under guard may have been targeted for his criticism of former colleagues and his investigation into the killing of a prominent anti-Kremlin journalist, friends and fellow dissidents said Sunday.

Col. Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, said earlier this week that he fell ill on Nov. 1 following a meal with a contact who claimed to have details about the slaying of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist gunned down last month in Moscow.

A doctor treating Litvinenko told the British Broadcasting Corp. that tests showed he was the victim of poisoning by thallium - a toxic metal found in rat poison. He is under armed guard at University College Hospital in London.

"He's got a prospect of recovering, he has a prospect of dying," said Dr. John Henry, a clinical toxicologist who treated Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in 2004 after he was poisoned during his presidential election campaign. Henry said thallium can cause damage to the nervous system and organ failure, and that just one gram can be lethal.

In an interview with the Sunday Times before his condition worsened, Litvinenko described how he had lunch with an Italian contact who claimed to have had information on Politkovskaya's killing, which has not been solved.

"They probably thought I would be dead from heart failure by the third day," Litvinenko is quoted as saying in the Sunday Times. "I do feel very bad. I've never felt like this before - like my life is hanging on the ropes."

Police have opened an investigation into the poisoning, said a spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.

Glenn Edwards, operations manager at Itsu restaurant where the lunch took place, told The Associated Press that detectives had arrived at the restaurant on Saturday asking for close circuit television footage.

Litvinenko left Russia for Britain six years ago and has become an outspoken critic of the Kremlin. In a 2003 book, "The FSB Blows Up Russia," he accused his country's secret service agency of staging apartment-house bombings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people in Russia and sparked the second war in Chechnya.

Boris Berezovsky, the Russian dissident and tycoon who was at Litvinenko's bedside on Friday, told The Associated Press he suspects Russia's intelligence services of the poisoning.

"It's not complicated to say who fights against him," Berezovsky said in a telephone interview. "He's (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's enemy, he started to criticize him and had lots of fears."

Another friend, Alexander Goldfarb, who organized Litvinenko's emigration to Britain, said FSB agents had threatened against him in the past. "He looks like a ghost," Goldfarb said. "He's a very fit man, he never smoked, he never drank, he would run five miles a day, but now he has lost all his hair, he has inflammation in the throat, so he cannot swallow."

Russian authorities did not immediately comment on the allegations.

Litvinenko joined the KGB in 1988 and rose to the rank of colonel in its successor, the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB. He began specializing in terrorism and organized crime in 1991, and was transferred to the FSB's most secretive department on criminal organizations in 1997.

He fled Russia and claimed asylum in Britain in November 2000, two years after publicly accusing his FSB superiors of ordering him to kill Berezovsky, at the time a powerful Kremlin insider. Berezovsky said Sunday that Litvinenko fell out with his superiors after he exposed corruption within FSB ranks.

Before he left Russia, Litvinenko was jailed for nine months awaiting trial on charges of abusing his office; he was acquitted.

Kremlin critics claim poisoning - which is extremely hard to prove - is a common Soviet-era practice that seems to have reappeared since Putin, an ex-KGB officer, became president.

"It is not a secret that poisoning has become some kind of a trademark of a secret war in Russia," Alexander Golts, political commentator with the Russian news Web site Ezhenedelny Zhurnal, told the Associated Press. "I will not take the risk of accusing the government ... but certain groups have quite overtly been eliminating people they disliked through poisoning.

"It is absolutely obvious that this story with Litvinenko fits very well into the overall picture of power struggle in Russia," he said.

Politkovskaya, who had written critically about abuses by Russian forces fighting separatists in Chechnya, fell seriously ill after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia in 2004 during the school hostage crisis in Beslan. Colleagues say she was poisoned.

Yuri Shchekochikhin, a liberal Russian lawmaker and journalist who crusaded against corruption, died in July 2003 after apparently suffering a severe allergic reaction. Colleagues suspect he was poisoned, probably in connection with his reports on a case involving customs officials and allegations that a furniture store had evaded millions of dollars in import duties.

Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president, had his face badly disfigured by what doctors said was dioxin poisoning.

In one of the most notable Cold War assassinations, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was killed in 1978 with a poison dart concealed in an umbrella. British investigators long have suspected Bulgarian agents in the slaying.

 

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Alexander Litvinenko is a critic of Vladimir Putin

Ex-KGB officer poisoning probed

BBC, 19 November 2006

 

UK police are investigating after a Russian former security agent in exile in Britain was poisoned by thallium.

Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB colonel and critic of President Vladimir Putin, fell ill on 1 November after a meeting at a London sushi bar. A clinical toxicologist said the 43-year-old had been given a potentially lethal dose of the poison. He is in a serious but stable condition in University College Hospital, London. He is reported to be under armed guard.

Mr Litvinenko said he had been investigating the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in Moscow last month. Speaking to the BBC last week, he said a contact had approached him to say they should talk and they arranged to meet at a restaurant in Piccadilly. "He gave me some papers which contained some names on it - perhaps names of those who may have been involved in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya - and several hours after the meeting I started to feel sick." Two weeks later Mr Litvinenko was taken seriously ill and admitted to hospital.

Clinical toxicologist John Henry, who examined Mr Litvinenko on Saturday, told the BBC there was "no doubt" he had been poisoned by thallium, probably on 1 November. He said the toxin was a "little bit like table salt" and that a very small amount could be lethal. "It is tasteless, colourless, odourless. It takes about a gram - you know, a large pinch of salt like in your food - to kill you." He said Mr Litvinenko was "quite seriously sick".

I think this is the work of the Russian Secret Service   Alex Goldfarb, friend of Mr Litvinenko

Mr Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb, who has been visiting him in hospital, said doctors told him he had a 50/50 chance of surviving the next three or four weeks. "He looks like a ghost. He lost all his hair. He hasn't eaten for 18 days. He looks like an old man... a month ago he was a fit handsome young man." He added: "I think this is the work of the Russian Secret Service."

Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who also lives in Britain, said thallium was a "special" poison, that "you couldn't just get over the counter". "You could say it is only available to secret services," he said. There has been no comment from the Kremlin and the Russian media is reportedly keeping quiet on the incident.

'Terror plots'

Scotland Yard said there had been no arrests but inquiries were continuing. Mr Litvinenko fled Russia and was granted political asylum in Britain in 2001. It is reported he was granted British citizenship this year, although this has not been confirmed by the Home Office which does not comment on individual cases.

Mr Litvinenko had earlier alleged that members of the Federal Security Service (FSB) - the main successor to the Soviet KGB - had plotted to kill Mr Berezovsky. In his book, Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, alleging that FSB agents coordinated the 1999 apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people. Russian officials blamed the explosions on Chechen separatists and in that year the Kremlin launched a new military offensive on Chechnya. Ms Politkovskaya, a harsh critic of Mr Putin and Russian policy in Chechnya, was shot dead at her Moscow apartment building. She was one of the few Russian journalists to write about alleged human rights abuses in Chechnya and had received death threats in the past. Ms Politkovskaya became ill with food-poisoning on her way to report on the Beslan school siege in 2004, which some believed may have been an attempt on her life.

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Defector 'poisoned by KGB' has 50/50 survival chance

Evening Standard, 19 November 2006

 

Scotland Yard is investigating the attempted murder of a top Russian defector poisoned by political enemies in London. Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB colonel who fled the current Russian regime to claim asylum in Britain, is under armed police guard in hospital. The former Russian security agent allegedly poisoned in London looks "like a ghost" in hospital, a friend said today.

Alexander Litvinenko has only a 50 per cent chance of surviving the next four weeks, said Alex Goldfarb, who brought him to Britain six years ago and has been visiting him in hospital.

Sources have confirmed that the Russian was taken suddenly and dangerously ill on November 1 while investigating the recent murder of dissident Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Mr Litvinenko was poisoned following a clandestine meeting with an associate at a sushi bar in London's Piccadilly.

The ex-KGB man was given documents which claimed to name Ms Politkovskaya's killers. According to the papers, she was murdered by four members of President Vladimir Putin's federal security service, known as the FSB. A source close to Mr Litvinenko claimed he had been the victim of a revenge attack by the increasingly hard-line Russian regime. The source added: "He is convinced that he has been poisoned at the instigation of President Putin."

Any suggestion that Putin's men are attacking their enemies on British soil is bound to place serious strain on relations between the two countries - and raises the ghosts of Cold War scandals such as the assassination of Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian dissident murdered with a poison-tipped umbrella.

Scotland Yard confirmed last night that the Litvinenko case was being investigated as a 'suspicious poisoning' and that his condition was 'serious, but stable'.

It was also clear that MI5 had launched an urgent operation. Senior security sources told The Mail on Sunday that the Russian had been poisoned with thallium, a virulent toxin that can cause death within ten hours.

Mr Litvinenko collapsed three weeks ago after meeting an Italian associate, Mario Scaramella, at the Itsu Japanese restaurant in Piccadilly.

Friends of the Russian believe he was followed around London by the FSB, which also monitored his e-mails and phone calls. Putin's agents would then have seen him take receipt of the documents at the sushi bar - and decided to move in for the kill.

Thallium - an odourless, colourless poison - can be lethal even in doses of less than a gram. Mr Litvinenko's supporters believe FSB agents injected the toxin into a meal either at the restaurant or shortly after his meeting with Mr Scaramella. The Russian and his supporters are certain Mr Scaramella had no knowledge of the poison attempt.

The victim survived, they say, only because of his high fitness levels and his quick-wittedness when he first felt ill. He induced vomiting in an attempt to rid his system of the poison.

He told the Russian Izvestia news agency last week that Mr Scaramella had e-mailed him from Italy in October asking to meet him in London on November 10 and 11.

Mr Litvinenko added: "But suddenly he called me on November 1 and, as usual, we decided to meet at Piccadilly Circus. We met at around 3pm and I invited him to dine in the restaurant.

"I ordered the food, and he took just water and was hurrying me. From the text of the documents, I understood that the mentioned people could have arranged the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. We parted nearly at once. As soon as I got home, I fell down."

Last night Tatiane Assis, duty manager of the Itsu sushi bar, said: "The police came here in the morning and they asked if we had CCTV cameras around. They didn't give me any details - they just said it was because they were looking into a poisoning but they weren't sure if it was in here. They didn't take anything away and we don't have any CCTV."

Mr Litvinenko, a former colonel in the FSB and before that its predecessor the KGB, defected to Britain in 2000 after fleeing treason charges in Russia. He was granted political asylum in May 2001.

Last night, friends of Mr Litvinenko said he had lost his hair, had difficulty speaking and had a 50 per cent chance of survival in University College Hospital, London.

Mr Litvinenko has proved a constant irritant to Mr Putin since a meeting between the pair eight years ago. In 1998, shortly after Mr Putin was appointed head of the FSB, he invited Mr Litvinenko to meet him. Mr Litvinenko has described how he used the occasion to tell Mr Putin about corrupt practices in the organisation. The meeting was cut short and he was suspended.

In November that year he went public with his claims - including the bombshell allegation that the FSB had plotted to kill the business tycoon Boris Berezovsky. From that point on, Mr Litvinenko was in and out of jail, facing corruption charges, until he fled to Britain.

The following year he co-authored a book - apparently funded by Berezovsky - Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within, which claimed the Russian security services had used organised crime gangs and war criminals to carry out contract killings in Russia and abroad.

He described a secret FSB department which specialised in locating and liquidating people considered a danger to the state. He also alleged that top Russian officials took million-dollar payments from Chechen leaders as payment for weapons and ammunition left in the war-ravaged republic by Russian troops - and in exchange for Russian commanders agreeing to halt certain military operations.

Most damagingly, he claimed that the FSB was behind the deadly apartment bombings in Moscow in 1999, which he said the Kremlin had blamed on Chechen terrorists. Recently he had become interested in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who investigated human-rights abuses by Russians in Chechnya and was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building in October.

The poisoning mystery recalls the spy dramas of the Cold War, when deep mistrust existed between East and West. The era was synonymous with treachery and betrayal - and some would go to almost any lengths to silence opponents.

One notorious case was that of Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian dissident killed by a poisoned umbrella in 1978.

He was standing at a bus stop on Waterloo Bridge when he felt a sting in his right leg. At the same moment, a man behind him picked up an umbrella he had dropped and sprinted away to get into a taxi.

Three days later, Markov was dead, a victim of the Cold War and the Bulgarian secret police.

Two years ago the world was given a startling reminder of the Soviet Union's grisly heritage with the attempted murder of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. He was poisoned by political rivals, and his face is still grossly disfigured.

Professor Scaramella, who Mr Litvinenko met in the sushi bar, is an academic at Naples University and a consultant to the Mitrokhin Commission which was set up by the Italian parliament to investigate the activities of the KGB in Italy during the Cold War.

In 2004 he was the victim of a murder attempt when a Mafia hitman tried to kill him. Several shots were fired but the gunman missed.

18 Days After Attack, Mainstream Media Reported on Defector's Poisoning

Kavkaz Center, 19 November 2006

Late Saturday, 18 days after a purported poisoning attack on a Russian defector in London, all of a sudden, if having received a common command, Western mainstream media started reporting on the story about the poisoning of a Russian defector in London on November 1, 2006. The reason of a delay in coverage was not explained by anybody although previous total media silence seems to be a more interesting story than the poisoning.

According to a report from the AP, London police have confirmed they are investigating the suspected poisoning of a former Russian spy who has accused his ex-colleagues of involvement in terrorism and assassinations.

Several British newspapers reported that Col. Alexander Litvinenko, 43, has been hospitalized since Nov. 1 with symptoms of near-fatal poisoning. A spokesman for Scotland Yard confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday that its detectives were trying to identify what was in his system - and who put it there. A police spokeswoman refused to go into details for Reuters but said: "Officers from the Specialist Crime Directorate are investigating a suspicious poisoning. No arrests have been made. Inquiries are continuing." She said: "His condition is serious but stable."

The Sunday Times reported that Litvinenko has suffered damage to his kidneys and bone marrow, is vomiting regularly and has lost his hair. The newspaper said it interviewed him at his bedside in a London hospital, where he was registered under a false name. It said he fell ill after having a meal with an Italian man who claimed to have information on the killing of an American investigative female journalist, who was gunned down on Oct. 7 outside her Moscow apartment building. Her attackers have not been found, the AP reported.

In an article by Sunday Times, published under an ambiguous title "Poisoned: spy who quit Russia for Britain", the editor David Leppard writes:

Aleksander Litvinenko, who defected to Britain six years ago, is fighting for his life in a London hospital. A toxicology test at Guy's hospital last Thursday confirmed the presence of the odorless, tasteless poison.

A medical report obtained by The Sunday Times shows that he has three times the maximum limit in his body, a potentially fatal dose. It is as yet unclear how the poison was administered, but on the day he became ill his family say he had a meal with a mysterious Italian contact.

Scotland Yard detectives have been liaising with consultants at Barnet hospital, north London, who have been treating Litvinenko since the poisoning on November 1, the anniversary of his defection.

A police spokesman confirmed an inquiry had been launched last week: "The Specialist Crime Directorate are investigating a suspicious poisoning."

Supplies of thallium in Britain are highly restricted and cases of poisoning are extremely rare. One gram is enough to kill even the fittest of men and Litvinenko, 43, has all the symptoms of the poison, which can be diagnosed only after at least two weeks.

He has kidney damage, is constantly vomiting and has lost all his hair. He has also suffered severe damage to his bone marrow and an almost total loss of white blood cells which are vital to the immune system.

Doctors say these latter symptoms could suggest the presence of a second unknown agent in a potentially lethal "cocktail".

In an interview last week at his bedside in the cancer ward of Barnet hospital, where he was being treated under a different name, Litvinenko said he believed it was a murder plot to avenge his defection (The interview was never published, note by KC).

"They probably thought I would be dead from heart failure by the third day," he said. "I do feel very bad. I've never felt like this before - like my life is hanging on the ropes."

"We met at Piccadilly Circus," said Litvinenko. "Mario said he wanted to sit down to talk to me, so I suggested we go to a Japanese restaurant nearby.

Last month Litvinenko received an unexpected e-mail from a man he knew as Mario, an acquaintance he had made in Italy. The Italian said he wanted to meet him in London because he had some important information about the murder of an American journalist who was killed in the lift of her Moscow apartment block.

"I ordered lunch but he ate nothing. He appeared to be very nervous. He handed me a four-page document which he said he wanted me to read right away. It contained a list of names of people, including FSB officers, who were purported to be connected with the journalist's murder.

"The document was an e-mail but it was not an official document. I couldn't understand why he had to come all the way to London to give it to me. He could have e-mailed it to me."

After the meeting the Italian had simply "disappeared", although Litvinenko emphasized that he was not in a position to accuse him of involvement in his poisoning.

That night Litvinenko became violently ill. His wife Marina, 44, said: "At first I thought it was just a bug but then he started vomiting. But it wasn't normal vomiting."

She said her husband is a fit man who often runs three miles a day. He had no previous record of medical problems. He was admitted to Barnet hospital on the third day. Nine days ago, his condition suddenly deteriorated and he lost all his hair. Doctors say Litvinenko has not eaten for 18 days and is receiving what little nourishment he can take via an intravenous drip.

Russian and East European agents have a history of using poisons to attack their enemies. Markov was poisoned with ricin and died three days later.

More recently Victor Yuschenko suffered facial disfigurement after being poisoned with suspected dioxin as he campaigned for the presidency of Ukraine.

Litvinenko, a specialist in fighting organised crime, came to prominence in 1998 after he accused the Russian authorities of trying to kill Boris Berezovsky, a tycoon close to Boris Yeltsin, who was then president.

He claims he was drummed out of the spy agency and subjected to harassment to punish him for speaking out. He was arrested twice on what he says were trumped up charges. Although he was acquitted, he spent months in Moscow prisons.

In 2000 he was arrested for a third time on charges of faking evidence in an investigation. Friends told him he was unlikely to escape lightly under the Putin regime.

Litvinenko decided to flee before he was arrested. Stripped by the authorities of his passport, he ended up in Turkey where he joined Marina and their son Anatoly, who had flown from Moscow on tourist visas. They came to Britain and claimed asylum. He has been a thorn in Moscow's side ever since.

Marina said she was hoping to find a bone marrow donor to save her husband's life.

Doctors have moved him to another hospital offering more specialized treatment and police have taken his family into protective custody", the Sunday Times says.

In an article under an even more ambiguous title "Poisoning of Russian agent raises fears of UK vendetta", The Observer writes:

"Defector Alexander Litvinenko is said to be fighting for his life under armed guard in hospital in the culmination of a bizarre case bearing more resemblance to the plot of a James Bond movie than to everyday life in the capital.

The British capital has recently become a fashionable haunt of Russian emigres, many of them extremely wealthy. However, alongside the influx of oligarchs have come several leading exiles regarded with suspicion in Moscow, triggering concerns that the violent vendettas that have plagued their homeland could be pursued on British streets.

There is no suggestion that the restaurant, the respected venue Itsu, was involved and friends said his guest may have been a genuine contact whose meeting with him was exploited by unknown opponents.

The 39-year-old former colonel in the Federal Security Bureau, formerly better known as the KGB, was taken ill at the beginning of November. He was initially treated in Barnet hospital, north London, before being moved and reports last night suggested tests had confirmed the presence of the poison thallium, a colorless and odorless liquid often used to kill rats. He is said to have ingested a potentially fatal dose; his condition is said to be 'serious but stable', The Observer said.

Condition of Poisoned FSB Defector Reportedly Again Seriously Worsened

Kavkaz Center, 19 November 2006

The clinical condition of a poisoned FSB defector seriously worsened in a London hospital late Saturday, November 18, 2006, according to a report from a Moscow radio station citing Mr Litvinenko's close associate and compatriot Goldfard from the US.

As reported earler by Mr Goldfarb, Mr Litvivenko's condition already sharply and seriously worsened on November 15. The defector was purportedly dying, unable to speak and was delivered to a hospital resuscitation ward on Tuesday evening, November 14, 2006. Mr Litvinenko gave a rather lengthy interview for the Chechenpress news agency from the hospital on Wednesday morning, November 15, 2006.

Mr Goldfarb confirmed earlier Mr Litvinenko's claims that the defector's hospital ward was guarded around the clock by London police.

His family of a wife and two sons who were not delivered in the hospital with thallium poisoning, like Mr Litvinenko, are also guarded by police around the clock, Mr Goldfarb said Saturday, explaining no reason for the police interest and action. No attack on Russian defectors' and "traitors' " family members who were not actively engaged in politics themselves were ever reported in the West.

Last week London police said in an interview with a Russian newspaper that they knew nothing about the case of the poisoned defector.

British press also seems to know nothing about Mr Livinenko's claims until this Saturday night.

Among Western media, only two Austrian newspapers reported on the poisoning before late Saturday, November 18, 2006: Der Standard in a few lines citing the Chechenpress on November 12, and Wiener Zeitung in two paragraphs on November 14, also citing the Chechenpress.

Meanwhile, a Russian emigre human rights activist, Ms Volodimerova from Holland, called to Mr Litvinenko partners, companions, associates and acquaintances to prove the integrity of the defector. In an article published on the Chechenpress Web site on Friday, November 17, 2006, Ms Volodimerova offered to compile a list of all Mr Litvinenko's moves during the last month.

Defector's acquaintances are supposed to testify that they met or phoned with the defector on this or that day in order to demonstrate that it was physically impossible for him to visit Russia and probably to be poisoned with thallium there.

Earlier, a Russian newspaper citing an unnamed FSB official said that Mr Litvinenko recently traveled to Moscow to give evidence to a Moscow persecutor's office in regard to a recent murder of an American female journalist there.

Mr Livinenko vehemently denies the charges.

Mr Litvinenko is said to have been the head of a secret FSB death squadron before defecting to Britain in 2000. The American journalist is reported by some news agencies to be murdered by FSB staff killers.

 

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'Poisoned' ex-spy fighting for life

The Australian, November 19, 2006

A FORMER Russian spy and fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin is fighting for his life in a London hospital after an apparent bid to kill him by poisoning.

Alexander Litvinenko, a former lieutenant-colonel in Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) - successor to the Soviet KGB - fell ill after a November 1 meeting in a London sushi bar with a contact who purportedly had information on the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, said the Mail on Sunday newspaper.

Specialist detectives launched an investigation as the 43-year-old lay in a University College Hospital bed in a serious but stable condition fighting what an expert said was poisoning by thallium, a toxic metallic element.

Friends of Mr Litvinenko said they were in no doubt that the FSB was out to get the outspoken defector, who was granted political asylum in Britain in 2001. A spokesman for London's Metropolitan Police said: "Officers from the specialist crime directorate are investigating a suspicious poisoning. "The inquiry is continuing and there's no arrest at this stage."

Mr Litvinenko fled to Britain after blowing the whistle on an alleged FSB plot to assassinate Russian business oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who is also now living in Britain. Mr Litvinenko reportedly fell out with Mr Putin when the president was head of the FSB in the late 1990s. He claimed the agency was linked to apartment bombings in 1999 which killed about 300 people and were blamed on the Chechens. They were one of the reasons then-prime minister Mr Putin sent Russian troops back into Chechnya, a popular war that propelled him into the presidency in 2000.

Politkovskaya, a long-term thorn in the Kremlin's side over the war, who was shot dead in her apartment in October, prompting an international outcry, was reportedly a friend of Mr Litvinenko.

The Sunday Times said the former agent had met an Italian called Mario at the sushi restaurant. "I ordered lunch but he ate nothing," the weekly quoted Mr Litvinenko as saying, without stating how or when he had spoken to the paper. "He appeared to be very nervous," he said. "He handed me a four-page document which he said he wanted me to read right away. "It contained a list of names of people, including FSB officers, who were purported to be connected with the journalist's murder." But Mr Litvinenko said he was not in a position to accuse Mario of involvement in the poisoning, the paper said.

The Mail on Sunday said Mr Litvinenko was in hospital under armed guard, was struggling to speak and had only a 50 per cent chance of survival. He had kidney damage, was constantly vomiting and suffered an almost total loss of white blood cells, The Sunday Times said. The paper quoted a medical report which showed he had three times the maximum safe limit of thallium in his body. Clinical toxicologist John Henry, who examined Mr Litvinenko yesterday, said the former spy was "quite seriously sick". "There's no doubt that he's been poisoned by thallium, and it probably dates back to 1 November, when he first started to get ill," he told the BBC. "It is tasteless, colourless, odourless. It takes about a gram... to kill you."

A friend of Mr Litvinenko, Alex Goldfarb, said outside the hospital: "He looks terrible. He looks like a ghost actually. He lost all his hair. He hasn't eaten for 18 days." He said: "I think this is the work of the Russian secret service."

A leading Chechen separatist in London, Akhmed Zakayev, said doctors were doing everything possible to save the former spy's life. "What happened on British soil on November 1 is the result of the condoning and lacklustre attitude of the Western governments to the state terrorism policy perpetrated by Russia," he told Sky News television outside the hospital, speaking through a translator. "Detectives are questioning him and there is an investigation going on involving this terrorist attack on British soil against a British citizen."

The Russian embassy in London was unavailable for comment.

 

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Axis Globe 17.11.200614:31 (GMT)

As reported by the Chechenpress news agency citing an unnamed source in London, doctors discovered that the Russian defector, the former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Alexander Litvinenko, was purportedly poisoned by thallium, a heavy metal that causes damage to nervous system, lungs and kidneys. According to the news agency, London police opened an investigation after receiving the medical report. Earlier, Livinenko himself said that the police had opened investigation even before any medical conclusions. The police denied knowing anything about Litvinenko' s case, according to Russian news reports.

The Scotland Yard first said they knew nothing about the case because "Russian journalists had not provided them with the address of the hospital". Litvinenko kept secret the address fearing further attacks against him by the FSB agents in Britain. The former FSB officer is under a heavy police guard in the hospital, and the police give no information about investigation to the media, the Chechenpress said. The same agency also reported late yesterday that Litvinenko’s condition suddenly sharply deteriorated, he couldn't speak any more. He was transferred to a resuscitation ward in the hospital, according to a report from his friend cited by a Russian radio station, Echo Moskvy.

According to the report published by the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets (MK), Litvinenko was poisoned in a London restaurant by a CIA agent, Mario Scaramella, purportedly in connection with his alleged role as a double agent. Litvinenko, a colonel of the Russian secret service FSB, defected to Great Britain in 2000. He was sentenced in absentia for treason in Russia. Litvinenko became British citizen in October 2006.

 

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Russian Defector Reportedly Poisoned By Thallium

Kavkaz Center, 18 November 2006

As reported today by the Chechepress news agency citing an unnamed source in London, doctors discovered that the Russian defector Litvinenko was purportedly poisoned by thallium, a heavy metal that causes damage to  nervous system, lungs and kidneys.

Murder cases caused by thallium are known worldwide through a popular detective novel by Agatha Christie.

According to the agency, London police opened an investigation after receiving the medical report. Earlier, Mr Livinenko said that the police had opened this investigation even before any medical conclusions. The police denied knowing anything about Mr Litvinenko' s case, according to Russian news reports.

Mr Litvinenko is under a heavy police guard in the hospital, and the police give no information about investigation to the media, the Chechenpress said.

Meanwhile, no British or other Western media showed any interest at all to the case of Mr Litvinenko and did not even mention his poisoning in the news or articles.

 

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Poisoned Russian Defector Dying, Western Media Keeps a Mum

Kavkaz Center, 16 November 2006, 08:21

The Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko is dying in a hospital in London. His condition suddenly sharply deteriorated, he can't speak any more. He was transferred to a resuscitation ward in the hospital, according to a report from his friend cited by a Russian newspaper.

The doctors are still unable to determine the agent used by the FSB to poison  Mr Litvinenko. It could be either heavy metals, or radiation, or allergic reaction to an unknown substance, the doctors said

Mr. Litvinenko, a colonel of the Russian secret service FSB, defected to Great Britain in 2000. He was sentenced in absentia for treason in Russia.

Except for a few lines in an Austrian newspaper citing the Chechenpress news agency, no Western media ever reported about the FSB attempt upon the life of the defector. Mr Litvinenko became British citizen in October 2006.

The Scotland Yard says that they know nothing about the case because \"Russian journalists did not provide them with the address of the hospital\". Mr Litvinenko kept secret the address fearing further  attacks against him by FSB agents in Britain. It would be a routine practice for the FSB to make a second attempt upon the life of the defector which probably already happened in the hospital.

 

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Litvinenko Interview

November 16th, 2006  

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper has published an article claiming that before the recent attempt to poison him ex-FSB colonel Alexander Litvinenko visited Moscow where he was secretly interrogated by Russian intelligence officials. The article appears to be another step in the attempts by Putin’s government to link Litvinenko with Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. Now Chechenpress has released an interview with Litvinenko, in which he makes clear that no such Moscow visit took place. Norbert Strade of chechnya-sl has translated the interview:

CP: Aleksandr, the Russian media assert that not long before your poisoning, you were in Moscow in order to give evidence in the case of the murder of Politkovskaya. Is that true?

AL: That’s a lie. I haven’t been in Moscow, or in Russia in general, since I left that country in 2000.

CP: Could it be that you gave some evidence in the Politkovskaya case to Russian investigators here in London?

AL: Since my departure from Russia, I haven’t kept any contacts with Russian investigators, not on a single question.

CP: There were also reports in the Russian media that the English police doesn’t investigate the attempt on your life. What do you say about this?

AL: This assertion is of the same kind as the first one, which means a plain lie. In spite of my grave condition, I gave evidence several times to the inspectors from the British police who investigate this case. They have no doubts about the criminal nature of this act against me.

CP: Can you at least briefly describe the content of the documents given to you by Mario Scaramella?

AL: I can only repeat what I have said earlier: Judging by these documents, the tracks of the murder of Politkovskaya are leading to the Russian FSB. These documents are now evidence material and I can’t reveal any more of their content.

CP: Do you suspect that it was exactly Mario Scaramella who poisoned you?

AL: I prefer not to speak about my suspicions for the time being. I’m sure that the investigation will do all that is possible to find the poisoners.

CP: I have a final question: What do your doctors say, what diagnosis did they make?

AL: The doctors conducted many analyses, but they weren’t able, until now, to establish which exact substance I was poisoned with. Today they moved me to the oncologic department for further analysis; there they have more advanced diagnostic equipment; they are going to make an analysis of a probe from the spinal cord. Then, maybe, the picture will become clear.

CP: Aleksandr, on behalf of the readers of Chechenpress, we would like to wish you a quick recovery!

AL. Thanks a lot! I feel your support; it greatly helps me. 

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Was witness of murdered Russian journalist’s case secretly taken to Moscow?
Axis Globe

(15 Nov 06)The scandalous history with poisoning in London of the former Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) officer can get absolutely different character, Moscow-based daily MK (Moskovsky komsomolets) writes today. According to the paper’s source in security forces, the former security service officer Alexander Litvinenko was interrogated in connection with the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya by the a Russian inspector.

According to Litvinenko, he was poisoned presumably on November 1 in a London restaurant when he met an informant who promised to give him the names of people involved in the journalist’s murder. The informant was Italian Mario Skaramella who shortly before had sent Litvinenko an e-mail message with the request for a meeting. The former security officer does not allege that he was poisoned by Skaramella. It is known that the Italian transferred to Litvinenko a four-page document.

According to the informal information, obtained by the MK from a source in the Russian secret services, Litvinenko came to Russia a short time ago and testified on Politkovskaya's case to the same State Office of Public Prosecutor inspector who in due time brought criminal case against Litvinenko. However, the State Office of Public Prosecutor categorically denies the fact of interrogation.
If the visit of Litvinenko to Russia really took place, that means that Litvinenko can really possess valuable information on the Politkovskaya’s case and has been promised to keep freedom, at least temporarily, MK writes. In this connection Litvinenko’s meeting with Skaramella might have had absolutely different character, the paper marks. 

Skaramella became widely known in March, 2005, when he declared that a Soviet nuclear submarine in January 1970 had planted 20 tactical nuclear torpedos at the coast of Italy. This statement was denied by Moscow. Skaramella reportedly made his statement on the basis of studying the so-called Mitrokhin’s archive. The Italian was an expert of a CIA commission on studying the archive. MK asks whether someone has tried someone to poison Litvinenko with Skaramella’s hands.

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Clinical Condition of Defector Poisoned by FSB Worsened

Kavkaz Center, 15 November 2006, 08:54

A friend of the Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko who is now being treated in an unnamed London hospital after he had been poisoned  by a Russian secret police agent said that the clinical condition of Mr Litvinenko worsened. Doctors do not know what happened to him, according to a report from a Russian radio station, Echo Moskvy ("Moscow Echo"),

The station is considered by the West to be liberal and critical to the Putin's regime but it is owned by Gasprom, the largest Russian state gas company.

Meanwhile, a Moscow newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets ("Moscow Young Communist League Member"), that is said to have most close ties with the Russian secret police FSB among all Russian state-controlled media, says in its Wednesday issue that Mr Litvinenko could have been poisoned by the CIA (sic!). The FSB (former KGB) always tries to put blame on other entities for its own bloody crimes.

According to a report published in the newspaper by the FSB, Mr Litvinenko is a double agent and recently visited Moscow giving testimonies to Russian police about the murder of an American female journalist of Jewish origin in Russia. Meanwhile, the FSB is unofficially reported to have killed the woman.

According to the FSB report published today in Moskovsky Komsomolets, Mr Litvinenko was poisoned in a London restaurant by a CIA agent,  Mario Scaramella, on November 1, 2006, purportedly in connection with his role as a double agent, the role invented by the FSB in this story to discredit Mr Litvinenko.

As earlier reported by the Chechepress news agency,  Mario Scaramella is a FSB agent in Italy and a close friend and business partner of the FSB deputy chief Kolmogorov. The Italian visited several time the FSB headquarters in Moscow.

The FSB is rather silly using the same psychological war patterns all the time. After the appearance of the first reports that the American journalist was killed by the FSB, the FSB reacted in the Russiian state-controlled media by accusing the CIA in killing the journalist, based on the sole fact that she had been an American citizen and could have been a former CIA agent who betrayed the interests of America in this or other way.

In 2004, the FSB poisoned with dioxine Mr Yushchenko, a pro-Western candidate for President in Ukraine, during a dinner with the  pro-Moscow Ukrainian secret police chief.  Mr Yushchenko survived the attack and became the President although the scars and a worsened health condition remained.

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London police unable to confirm information on poisoning of former Russian FSB officer 
Axis Globe

AIA wrote November 11 that the former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was hospitalized in London with symptoms of toxic poisoning. Litvinenko himself told the press that he was poisoned with unknown toxin on November 1, during a meeting with the informant in one of London restaurants. According to former FSB colonel, the informant had transferred to him papers, containing information on the murderers of the known Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Daily Kommersant writes that Litvinenko appeared in a hospital after a meeting with the citizen of Italy, Mario Skaramella. According to Litvinenko, he had sent him at the end of October from Italy a message by e-mail asking about a meeting, and had written that he would be in London November 10-11. However, Skaramella unexpectedly called Litvinenko already November 1 and they agreed to meet in Pikadilly Circus. Litvinenko told that it was him who invited Skaramella to a restaurant.

Mario Skaramella is called by media both, a journalist and an expert on Soviet secret services, became known in March, 2005. He announced to the British newspaper The Independent that " during the Cold War the Soviet submarines had established 20 nuclear mines at the coast of Italy". The statement soon was denied by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation and foreign military experts.

According to Litvinenko, Skaramella conveyed him November 1 a document on four typewritten sheets. The Italian was nervous and claimed he might be killed and that people involved in Anna Politkovskaya's murder are mentioned in these papers in English, the former FSB colonel says. Kommersant marks that Litvinenko has noticed in the papers some surnames of the FSB staff members he was familiar with, but asked Skaramella to give him time for studying the documents.

Having returned home, Litvinenko reportedly had felt symptoms of a poisoning. He told he was in a grave condition for a few days and doctors of the London hospital as far are unable to name the toxin. The London police is going to interrogate Litvinenko in detail as soon as he leaves the hospital. Litvinenko says he does not blame Skaramella and the papers he had conveyed to him will be passed to the police and journalists of the Novaya gazeta who carry out their independent investigation of Politkovskaya’s murder.

Kommersant writes also that the Scotland-Yard yesterday has checked the database on five central areas of London, however any record about a crime told by Litvinenko was not revealed. A Scotland-Yard representative told the paper that more detailed information was necessary, the name of the street, restaurant or hospital (Litvinenko holds these data in secret) to find such a record.
The Moscow-based daily MK recalls that Litvinenko has sometimes spoken on a theme of use of poisons by secret services. The New York Times (December 15, 2004) in an article under headline "Poison as Political Tool", quoted Litvinenko as saying: "It was considered in our service that poison is an easier weapon than a pistol". The article said, referring to Litvinenko, that a secret KGB laboratory in Moscow, continuing the work under the auspices of the FSB, specialized on studying of poisons.

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FSB Attack On Russian Defector In London Censured By UK Police, Media

Kavkaz Center, 14 November 2006

Up till now, not a single UK media reported about the FSB attempt to poison a Russian defector in London, Alexander Litvinenko, on November 1, 2006. Some European newspapers including the Austrian Der Standard covered the story in a few lines, according to a Russian news report.

The Scotland Yard is only brave in inventing stories about Muslim \"air terrorists\". Scotland Yard proved \"unable to find any record about the crime related to Litvinenko\" on Sunday, 2006, in an interview with a Russian newspaper. Probably, they were all ordered to do their best not to deteriorate relations with the Putin regime.

Meanwhile, a Russian newspaper, Kommersant, published some details on this new FSB crime in the West. The Russian defector and former FSB colonel Alexander Litvinenko was admitted to a hospital with signs of toxin poisoning, the Kommerant says.

Mr Litvinenko said he was poisoned when meeting one of informers, who delivered documents about the recent murder of an American female journalist of Jewish origin in Moscow.

Alexander Litvinenko needed the hospital treatment once he dined with his acquaintance, Mario Scaramella of Italy, in one of the restaurants downtown London. "He sent me an e-mail from Italy late October asking to meet and wrote that he will be in London November 10 to 11," Litvinenko said. "But suddenly, he called me November 1 and, as usual, we decided to meet on Piccadilly Circus. We met at around 3:00 p.m., and I invited him to dine in the restaurant."

From Scaramella, Mr Litvinenko received a four-page document printed in English. The Italian was nervous claiming the document mentions names of the people involved in the murder of the American, Litvinenko went on.

Indeed, the document contained names of some officers of the FSB the defector knew while working in the FSB headquarters in Moscow.

"I ordered the food, and he took just water and was hurrying me. From the text, I understood that the mentioned people could have really arranged the murder.  We parted nearly at once," Mr Litvinenko continued. "As soon as I got home, I put the papers and was down."

Mr Litvinenko is in a London hospital now and the doctors are still unable to determine the toxins.  Mr Litvinenko said that his heart endured because he was actively going in for sport and that he survived thanks to cleaning out the stomach as soon as he spotted the poisoning signs.

According to Mr Litvinenko, the London police opened the case and he would be interrogated in detail once he left the hospital. As to the documents, Litvinenko promised to pass them to the police, the Moscow newspaper writes on Monday.

 

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FSB Denies Attempting To Kill Russian Defector in London

Kavkaz Center, 13 November 2006

The Moscow newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets ("Moscow Young Communist League Member") denied in its Monday issue that the Russian secret police FSB attempted to kill a Russian defector, Alexander Litvinenko, in London on November 1, 2006.

Moskovsky Komsomolets is said to have most close ties with the FSB among the Russian media.

Citing a report on the poisoning of Mr Litvinenko from the English-language service (sic!) of the Kavkaz Center news agency in a Russian translation made in Moscow, the newspaper confirmed  that Mario Scaramella, an Italian citizen and a close associate of Kolmogorov, the deputy chief of the FSB, visited several times the FSB headquarters in Moscow but said that his visits were purely professional and were connected with his position as a consultant of an Italian parliamentary commission investigating the KGB activity and the former KGB agents among Italian citizens in Italy.

These allegations by the Moscow newspaper seem really strange because the FSB (former KGB) never confirms or denies the names of the KGB agents in the West, and Mario Scaramella had nothing to look for in this matter in the FSB building at all, especially for several (!) times.

According to the intelligence, Mario Scaramella is a close friend and a business partner of Kolmogorov, the Chechen news agency Chechenpress reported on Saturday.

The Moscow newspaper also claimed that Mr Litvinenko had lied about his poisoning in order to gain publicity. This claim  had been rejected by the doctors in a London hospital who confirmed that Mr Litvinenko had been  really poisoned with an unknown toxin.

The KGB-FSB always denies point blank all its crimes. The most famous case is the murder of the main Stalin's rival,  Leon Trotsky, who was assassinated by a Russian secret police agent in Mexico in 1940.  The Russians denied that they had killed Mr Trotsky for almost 50 years and admitted this crime only during the perestroika era.

 

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FSB Attempted To Murder Russian Defector in London

Kavkaz Center, 11 November 2006, 08:35

An Italian citizen, Mario Scaramella, invited a Russian defector, Alexander Litvinenko, to a London restaurant claiming he had some important information about  a recent  murder of an American female journalist of Jewish origin in Moscow.

In a couple of hours after the dinner, Mr Litvinenko felt very sick and was delivered into a London hospital with extremely dangerous poisoning caused by an unknown toxin. He balanced between life and death for several days.

The London police started an investigation. According to intelligence, Mario Scaramella is a close associate of the FSB deputy chief Kolmogorov and visited the FSB headquarters in Moscow several times.

The Russian terror