CLOAK AND DAGGER

Alexander Litvinenko, before and after poisoning.

Moscow to blame for poisoning, KGB director says

Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who had been fighting for his life in recent days after an apparent poisoning, has died.
In an interview just hours before he slipped into unconsciousness, Mr Litvinenko whispered: "The bastards got me, but they won't get everybody".
The Kremlin said on Friday the ex-spy's death was a "tragedy" but was now a matter for British police to investigate.
Litvinenko, a fierce critic of Putin, first began to feel ill on November 1, after having tea with two Russians at a central London hotel, followed by lunch at a London sushi bar with an Italian academic.

The former Russian spy London, has been a very public thorn in the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin, blaming the President for ramping up the violence in Chechnya and ordering the assassination of his opponents.
Now a KGB defector has told AM he has no doubt that Moscow ordered Mr Litvinenko's poisoning, which could set the scene for Britain's biggest ever clash with President Putin's Russia.
Some reports have it Mr Litvinenko was investigating the recent shooting of Russian Journalist Anna Politkovskaya

Alexander Litvinenko's vocal and constant derision of President Putin immediately had his friends claiming he was poisoned by the FSB (former KGB) or some other intelligence agency in Moscow.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Radioactive polonium found in Arafat's clothes

New radiation tests on the clothes and belongings of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have led to speculation he died from poisoning by polonium.

Dr Francois Bochud, the head of the Institute of Radiation Physics at Lausanne in Switzerland says his team measured an unexplained, elevated level of unsupported polonium-210.

"The conclusion was that we did find some significant polonium that was present in these samples," he told Al Jazeera.

Mr Arafat's death at the age of 75 in a French hospital was surrounded by mystery and allegations he had been poisoned.

Litvinenko

Polonium was used to kill Russian former spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 after drinking tea laced with the radioactive substance at a London hotel.

"If we take the scenario of Mr Litvinenko, one gigabecquerel at the beginning would come to about 10 millibecquerel," Dr Bochud told Al Jazeera. "What was astonishing in our case was that we found values in the samples of Mr Arafat that were in the same order of magnitude."

Al Jazeera's documentary claims unsupported polonium is the kind made in a nuclear reactor and even the tiniest amount, not even visible to the naked eye, is enough to kill.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Litvinenko suspect wants to be Russian president

The Russian wanted by Britain on suspicion of killing Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko says he will stand for election to parliament and would like to become president of Russia.
Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB security service officer, said he would represent the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), which is headed by ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
He denied seeking the immunity from prosecution that election to parliament would give him. Russian prosecutors have said there was no basis for a criminal case against him, he said.

British prosecutors want to extradite Lugovoi from Russia to face trial in London for the murder of Mr Litvinenko, who died in a London hospital on November 23 last year after receiving a dose of radioactive polonium-210, a rare and highly toxic isotop.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

 

Spy poisoning: suspect ‘to talk’

ONE of the suspects in the London murder of the former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko is willing to co-operate with the inquiry into his death, the hearing heard yesterday.

Mr Litvinenko died from radioactive poisoning three weeks after meeting former Russian agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun at a Mayfair hotel in November 2006. Kovtun and Lugovoi are suspected of slipping radioactive polonium-210 into Litvinenko’s tea. Both deny involvement and remain in Russia.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Expulsions escalate UK-Russia diplomatic row

London has expelled four Russian diplomats in protest over Moscow's refusal to extradite a former KGB agent to stand trial over the murder.

In response, Russia has warned of serious consequences and that is expected to include tit-for-tat expulsions of British diplomats.

It is nearly nine months since Litvinenko, a former Russian agent living in exile in the UK, died a horrifying and lingering death after he was poisoned by the highly radioactive isotope, polonium 210, which is used as a trigger in nuclear weapons.