Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Berezovsky gang caught smuggling radioactive material?

Adam | 23.12.2006 21:49 | Analysis

Did Litvinenko and Kovtun receive the same wrong information as British detectives? That Polonium is harmless unless ingested?

"On the Health Protection Agency's website the agency says that polonium-210 is "not a radiological hazard as long as it remains outside the body" and that "most traces can be eliminated through hand-washing, washing machines and dishwasher cycles for clothes, plates, etc".
However, the only contact one of the contaminated detectives had with the poison was when he removed items such as clothing from Litvinenko's home. Evidence of the substance was reportedly found in a tea cup at the Millennium Hotel more than a month after Litvinenko was killed and countless washes. Seven bar staff who had minimal contact with Litvinenko all show evidence of exposure." - really bad advice!

German authorities said today that they had found traces of the radioactive substance polonium in a car and two homes in Hamburg used by a Russian business associate of the murdered ex-K.G.B. agent Alexander V. Litvinenko a few days before the men met in London...
The confirmation that traces of polonium 210, a radioactive isotope, were found in Hamburg as early as Oct. 28 is critical because the British police have so far found no evidence of polonium contamination in London earlier than Nov. 1...
To refresh your memory, Kovtun is the Russian "businessman" who accompanied Lugovoy to the hotel bar on November 1. The fact that he had the stuff on him days before it made its way into Litvinenko's system is obviously hugely incriminating. But I think the NYT is wrong about there having been no polonium found in London before 11/1. According to the Times of London, there's good reason to think it was present in and around the city in mid-October:
Traces of polonium-210 has been found at Parkes Hotel, Mayfair, it was confirmed last night. It means that radiation has been found at all three hotels where Mr Lugovoy had stayed since flying to London on October 16. The Parkes was the first he stayed at.
The radioactive isotope has also been found at Risc Management, a security firm in Cavendish Place, visited by Litvinenko with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun on October 17.
Assuming ToL is right, Kovtun had already been exposed to the substance long before he got to Hamburg. Back to the NYT:
Police in Hamburg have assembled a detailed picture of Mr. Kovtun's movements after he arrived from Moscow on an Aeroflot flight on Oct. 28. He appears to have begun spreading polonium soon after he stepped off the plane. Traces were found on the seat of a car that met him at the airport...
Ms. Sweden said the traces found in the car, a BMW, are intriguing because they suggest that Mr. Kovtun could have been carrying polonium 210 outside his body, rather than leaving traces from his own body.
"If you're sitting in the passenger seat of a car, you're not likely to be sweating enough to leave traces of it that way," Ms. Sweden said. "It's possible he got poisoned by handling the stuff."
The other traces of contamination — at the apartment of Mr. Kovtun's ex-wife, the house of her mother and in the immigration office — could have been deposited through sweat or saliva, Ms. Sweden said.
This gets us back to the question I asked last night: how resilient is this stuff? British cops discovered today that two of their own have radiation poisoning, one of them from the barest contact:
On the Health Protection Agency's website the agency says that polonium-210 is "not a radiological hazard as long as it remains outside the body" and that "most traces can be eliminated through hand-washing, washing machines and dishwasher cycles for clothes, plates, etc".
However, the only contact one of the contaminated detectives had with the poison was when he removed items such as clothing from Litvinenko's home. Evidence of the substance was reportedly found in a tea cup at the Millennium Hotel more than a month after Litvinenko was killed and countless washes. Seven bar staff who had minimal contact with Litvinenko all show evidence of exposure.
British police are now hastily updating their protocols for dealing with what's quickly becoming a nightmare scenario — a terrorist dirty bomb in the heart of London.
The likelihood of an attack this Christmas? According to Home Secretary John Reid, "very high indeed."
Update: Pretty resilient.
SCOTLAND YARD HAS HAD ONE BIG BREAK IN the case: polonium, once released, is like a persistent, invisible dye that marks whatever it touches. Someone who ingests even small amounts will leave an unmistakable trail through sweat and even fingerprints.

 http://hotair.com/archives/2006/12/10/jackpot-polonium-linked-to-kovtun-days-before-litvinenko-poisoning/

Adam

Comments

Display the following 5 comments

  1. intriguing — Ravon
  2. awfully convenient... — Anonymous
  3. Who dun it? — Muddy Waters
  4. Berezovsky is te key to this affair — Tony Gosling
  5. Only one snag ... — sceptic
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech