UK: Radioactive Isotope Killed Ex-KGB

(CBS/AP)  Scotland Yard detectives on Saturday traced the final steps of a former KGB spy turned Kremlin critic after officials determined he was poisoned by a rare radioactive substance.

A cabinet council that deals with sensitive diplomatic incidents met for a third day to discuss Alexander Litvinenko's death. A meeting Friday was chaired by Britain's top law enforcement official, Home Secretary John Reid.

Litvinenko died late Thursday at a London hospital after days in intensive care as doctors puzzled over what was destroying his immune system and causing his organs to fail.

Police said they were not yet treating the case as a murder, rather as an "unexplained death."

Britain's Health Protection Agency said Friday that the radioactive element polonium-210 had been found in his urine, and the police said traces of radiation were found at Litvinenko's home and a ritzy hotel bar and sushi restaurant he visited on Nov. 1, the day he became ill.

Polonium-210 is not a substance used in everyday research laboratories, according to a toxicologist interviewed on Saturday.

"It has to be manufactured, it has to be made in a nuclear facility where you can bombard material with neutrons. It's actually quite tricky to make," said Gaia Vince, a journalist for New Scientist Magazine.

Detectives were interviewing the hotel and restaurant staff, a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said Saturday.

The Health Protection Agency also asked anyone who had visited the sushi bar or hotel lounge to contact Britain's health service, although the agency stressed that the risk to the public from the radioactive material found at the bar and hotel is low.

Litvinenko died late Thursday at a London hospital after spending days in intensive care as doctors puzzled over what was causing his organs to fail and attacking his bone marrow and destroying his immune system.

Although Litvinenko had been critical of Putin and his government, he was not widely known until he fell ill, CBS News Moscow Bureau Chief Beth Knobel reports.

The radioactive isotope polonium-210 was found at the former Russian spy's North London home, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Roth, as well as at the fashionable Mayfair area's Millennium Hotel's dimly lit bar and the Itsu Sushi restaurant near Piccadilly Circus.

In a dramatic statement written before he died, Litvinenko called Russian President Vladimir Putin "barbaric and ruthless" and blamed him personally for the poisoning.

The 43-year-old Litvinenko, who fiercely criticized Putin's government from his refuge in London since 2000, told police he believed he was poisoned Nov. 1 while investigating the October slaying of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of Putin.

Litvinenko's statement, read by his friend Alex Goldfarb to reporters outside the hospital, put the blame for his death squarely on Putin.

He accused Putin of having "no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value."

"You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed," the statement said.

"You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life."

Goldfarb said Litvinenko dictated the statement before he lost consciousness Tuesday, and signed it in the presence of his wife, Marina.

In a series of interviews published in London's Daily Telegraph, Litvinenko told of how the KGB recruited assassins and eliminated whitsleblowers who threatened the Kremlin.

Putin, in Finland, offered his condolences for the death of Alexander Litvinenko and strongly denied any involvement. He called the release of the deathbed statement a "political provocation" by his opponents.

"A death of a man is always a tragedy and I deplore this," the Russian leader said when asked about Litvinenko during a news conference after a meeting with European Union leaders.

Putin said the fact that Litvinenko's statement was released only after his death showed it was a provocation. "It's extremely regrettable that such a tragic event as death is being used for political provocation," he said.

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[bushrocks1]

Would I send my son to this war? You might ask would I send him to WW II? Or Vietnam? Maybe you would distinguish those conflicts and whether you would send your son to fight in them. But that question is misdirected in a very important way: I can't command my son to go to war. He has to make that choice. So the better question would be: would I volunteer to fight in Iraq, WW II, Vietnam? Would I volunteer to fight in any war? Respond if drafted? I don%u2019t know. I'm not equivocating, only addressing that it is a hypothetical. To a hypothetical, I can answer, sure I'd fight. But I have nightmares of battle (from my past life as a Jacobite). So how do I feel toward those who do volunteer? Impressed and maturely knowing that many things go into their decision. But I do strongly believe that a country that can't find those men is doomed. The fact that we can find them is one reason why I say there is no failure in Iraq. Objectively, I also believe it for other reasons. An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East is a bold, brilliant, noble effort, facing a high chance of failure. That's why I greatly respect and admire those who have made the attempt--the Bush administration. They have been resolute, something I have not seen in my lifetime. They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front, being a big one. But now those traitors have apparently occupied the high ground. Yet... we're still in Iraq. Why?... I'm waiting.

[agnim]

This british double agent lived by the poison and died by the poison. That's life of a murderous spy.

Spies are trained killers!

Spies are not angels.

Spies usually die as they live. That is the nature of the killing business.

[feelfree1]

Re: "former KGB spy"

I will sleep a little more soundly tonight knowing that there is one less KGB terrorist threatening humanity.

[feelfree1]

alphaa10,

That is a fine summary.

[alphaa10-2009]

The Bush regime is a criminal act in progress. Bush and Cheney and co-conspirators sought objectives in Iraq which had nothing whatever to do with national security or al Qaeda. To conceal their designs, Bush, Cheney and co-conspirators lied to the American people in congress assembled, and to this day continue to lie about the reasons and justification for the American presence in Iraq.

The ten secret, multibillion-dollar military bases Halliburton builds are intended to provide American control of Iraqi oil for decades to come, and a power projection base for further American military intervention in the region. The billion-dollar American embassy bunker in the heart of Baghdad has essentially the same purpose.

The brazen criminal act of Bush and his co-conspirators goes down in history as the worst and most costly political scandal in American history, a black mark of shame on all who supported and endorsed Bush and his party. We who witness the suffering of American soldiers, their families and Iraqi civilians must do all in our power to end this criminal administration. Lies created Iraq, but more lies will not prevent disaster of major proportions.

[bushrocks1]

Would I send my son to this war? You might ask would I send him to WW II? Or Vietnam? Maybe you would distinguish those conflicts and whether you would send your son to fight in them. But that question is misdirected in a very important way: I can't command my son to go to war. He has to make that choice. So the better question would be: would I volunteer to fight in Iraq, WW II, Vietnam? Would I volunteer to fight in any war? Respond if drafted? I don%u2019t know. I'm not equivocating, only addressing that it is a hypothetical. To a hypothetical, I can answer, sure I'd fight. But I have nightmares of battle (from my past life as a Jacobite). So how do I feel toward those who do volunteer? Impressed and maturely knowing that many things go into their decision. But I do strongly believe that a country that can't find those men is doomed. The fact that we can find them is one reason why I say there is no failure in Iraq. Objectively, I also believe it for other reasons. An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East is a bold, brilliant, noble effort, facing a high chance of failure. That's why I greatly respect and admire those who have made the attempt--the Bush administration. They have been resolute, something I have not seen in my lifetime. They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front, being a big one. But now those traitors have apparently occupied the high ground. Yet... we're still in Iraq. Why?... I'm waiting.

[agnim]

"Who is running off at mouth, now, Alexei?!"

alphaa10 at 12:56 PM : Nov 25, 2006

LOL

Considering that Agnim is not a player in the murderous spy business, he has very little worthwhile info that can be used to BETRAY fellow spies and endanger his own existence.

Highly sophisticated spies are not about to waste their time and expensive Polonium on Agim.
For running off at the mouth like a female, Agnim is more likely to get done in by the common every day mugger. LOL

[agnim]

ddkem at 01:01 PM : Nov 25, 2006

Fact: Baby girls are known to start talking way before boys; and they never seem to stop.
Hence the statement.

Is that expansion enough for you, DD? LOL

No need to get uptight. If our Mother Nature didn't see fit to have girls talking and talking and talking to let off excess steam, then she wouldn't have created and evolved them thata way.

There shouldn't be a problem; but any complaints you may have should be taken up with Mother Nature. LOL

[alphaa10-2009]

mecbno said, "So they couldn't figure this out while he was dying??? All those days he was dying in the hospital and they never bothered to check his home for radiation? I mean, knowing who he was and from his symptoms I think it would have been a no-brainer for a detective to check for radiation poisoning. - Pretty lame if you ask me."
---

OK, lame it must be, then. And maybe they should have suspected polonium poisoning from the beginning, since it is such a common malady these days. Loss of hair, depressed immune function, yep-- it all adds up to a clear case of radiation sickness. Nothing else could account for it.

But in point of fact, some very astute doctors were working this case, and from all appearances it took even them by surprise.

At this point, questions revolve about the evidence for radiation at Litvinenko's home, and at two restaurants. What was found? If polonium were ingested after someone planted the pellet in Litvinenko's food, there would be no reason to suspect other locations for polonium.

For all those who dismiss the uproar over Litninenko as so much crusty, Cold-War paranoia, the news is Stalin is alive and well in the Kremlin. Just recently, the Russian parliament authorized the FSB to use active measures like poisons against "terrorists" abroad.

Conveniently, and all too-revealingly, the law left determination of who should be deemed a terrorist to the FSB, alone.

[ddkem]

"Any spy who goes political and runs off at the mouth like a female no doubt runs a grave risk from HIS OWN NATIONALIST COMRADES!"

Posted by Agnim at 11:54 AM : Nov 25, 2006

Runs off at the mouth like a female?? Would you care to elaborate on this sexist remark?! How dare you, Agnim!