British Police Identify Killer in Radiation Case 235
reporter writes "According to a front-page story by The Guardian, British authorities have identified Andrei Lugovoi to be the murderer who used radioactive pollonium-210 to kill Andrei Litvinenko. The British government will ask Moscow to extradite Lugovoi. The Guardian states: 'Associates of the dead man have repeatedly accused President Vladimir Putin's government of being behind his murder, a claim the Kremlin rejects. While it is known that detectives believe they have uncovered evidence pointing to Mr Lugovoi's involvement, it is not clear whether they have established a motive for the murder'"
Tracked by his radioactive trail (Score:5, Interesting)
The UK may have to hand over a scummy billionaire who profited immensely off of the rush to privatize Russia, which would be cool: two scumbags busted for the price of one.
Implications for British Power (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this is a real test case of whether the notion of the UK as a nation holds any actual power in the World. The Russian constitution, as I understand it, obliges the Russian government NOT to render Russian citizens for extradition, despite the fact that in Britain the defendent will assuredly recieve a fair trial (either in the UK or by analogy to the Lockerbie case, in a third country).
If the Russian government DID sponsor an assassination within British territory, it is an affront to our sovereignty and should be exposed. If on the other hand it was NOT, then it is equally desirable that the Russian government be cleared of that.
If the UK does not take a strong, principled stand on this issue, then I feel that our identity of "British" is very probably meaningless.
Re:Tracked by his radioactive trail (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Tracked by his radioactive trail (Score:5, Interesting)
At the same time, he has stood for the liberalization of the media and government structures, for which he was ordered exterminated by Litvinenko. In a tyrannical atmosphere that is Russia right now, that deserves a lot of credit.
Re:He ASKED for this... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think whoever did this is going for a kind of terrorism. They want to scare the hell out of their enemies. Like the guy who ran for president in Ukraine and was disfigured by a mysterious poison. Scary stuff.
It's just politics and diplomacy (Score:4, Interesting)
the medium is the message (Score:2, Interesting)
The method of this assassination was intended to create a specific kind of fear among people who pay attention to these sorts of things. Putin's transformation of Russia is nearly complete.
A better question (Score:4, Interesting)
Why poison the person multiple times when one time would be enough? We know it's multiple times because the police believe it to be multiple exposures. How would they know this unless the decay or signatures were different between exposures?
The amount is very puzzling. The amount is a huge amount of the material. It was so much that it left a blemish in the tea cup. Something on orders of 100 watts of heat from the Po-210.
I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but it seems to me there has to be much more to this story. What were these guys really up to?
Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Interesting)
Summary From A Former Soviet Citizen (Score:1, Interesting)
One of my coworkers was a Soviet citizen up until the collapse of the USSR. When this happened, I asked him what he thought. Did Putin do it?
His reply was an incredulous look and "Of course he did it!" He thought it was idiotic anyone would even need to ask.
Re:Implications for British Power (Score:1, Interesting)
I wouldn't think that, I'm not sure China or the US could get anyone out of Russia if Russia didn't want them to leave and no one doubts that they are powerful. I do kinda hope that we don't get this guy though, then at least it will make plain the dangers we can face by being dependent upon Russia for anything, especially for our gas suplies - can you imagine how hard it would be if they could respond to any request with "off goes your gas"...
Re:Polonium halo argument has been debunked before (Score:2, Interesting)
robert v gentry has no problem putting his data into peer review publications such as nature and science -- and trust me, if there were someone that could debunk his findings for sure, they themselves would have put it in nature or science because they'd loooove to be the person that debunks gentry in the same exact journals hes posted his work in.
but alas, nope. no refuting has been done in anything peer review. only on talkorigins, which is blatantly a anticreationist site with a deceptively named domain.
Re:It's just politics and diplomacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Fact of the matter is, Russia trounced on the UK's sovereignty and did it with a lot of noise. The UK essentially got humiliated and they are going to have to apply negative leverage over Russia in order to get that guy in order to save face. Since the UK actually is a lot more powerful economically speaking and have a lot more say in organizations such as the WTO and EU they are in a position to put a lot of hurt on Russia for this, if they would really want too.
Re:A better question (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ya right (Score:2, Interesting)
If he carried this polonium round for so long and was effectively oozing with the stuff, why isn't he in the same place as his victim?
Litvinenko's Book (Score:5, Interesting)
"Think. It ain't illegal yet." - George Clinton with Funkadelic
How many lies can one article contain? (Score:0, Interesting)
The fact that polonium was delivered in the hotel teapot, which remained in use at the hotel, shows that either alleged assasins or British officials are stupid beyond believe. Why did a state-sponsored assasin, who is a millionaire, use a hotel teapot and then left his murder weapon at the scence of the crime?
and the propaganda keeps on rolling on and on and on...
This whole thing reeks (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, I just don't buy it. I've read about the death of Litvinenko, and I've done a little homework into this guy's history that seems interesting. I'm not going to delve too deeply in the details, but it seems to me that it's quite probable that this whole thing was a publicity stunt.
Yeah, a guy's dead. But this guy has a history of being violently opposed to the current Russian administration. His history shows him trying a number of times to discredit and/or destroy the Putin-controlled government. He was involved with a number of groups with the same goal, particularly in London.
Now, honestly if you were a member of the Russian government who wanted rid of a thorny problem, how would you do it? Kill the guy with a bullet through the head, or use a traceable, unusual and likely highly public method of killing someone? It seems to me that the FSB would have been quite capable of putting a bullet in Litvinenko's brain pan at any time and suddenly this thorny problem goes away. Besides, it seems from my reading that Litvinenko was no more or less of a problem to the Russian government than most of his other brothers in his societies and groups in England. To say that Litvinenko was such a problem to the government that they'd want to kill him at all is I think inflating his importance.
Now, if you as a group wanted to make a statement that would have worldwide coverage regarding the inhumanity of Putin's government, how better to do it than to have one of your own lay down his/her life in a particularly odd and highly newsworthy fashion? And if you can show that your martyr has been moving around because his movements are particularly traceable then you've just scored extra bonus points.
Litvinenko's death was painful, slow and highly newsworthy. The BBC was all over it... I know. I live in the US but I still enjoy the BBC podcasts every day on my way to work... it was all over the BBC world service for weeks. It seems awfully convenient that a guy who has been extremely vocal in his opposition to Putin's government would meet an end that so amply demonstrates precisely the message he and his colleagues were trying to convey (if it's true, of course). The media coverage also somewhat reeked of an orchestrated media blitz, it was just too perfect.
Now, as for where they got the polonium-210... well, after the fall of the Soviet Union much of the nuclear material that had existed within the country's borders was probably sold off around the world in order to support the orphaned communities who suddenly had very few ways of supporting themselves. It's not such a stretch to think that a sufficiently organized group with enough funding could find a sufficient quantity of polonium-210 on the black market to take the life of one of their own in a massive political statement.
Now, I'm still a little on the fence on this one. I'd say 60% chance that the above is what happened, but I still maintain a 40% possibility that what the media told us about the FSB poisoning Litvinenko was true. Perhaps it was to make a statement to all of those colleagues of Litvinenko that they need to quiet down... but it seems to me that a handful of bullets and a few key members of the groups getting lynched would be cheaper, quicker, cleaner and send the same message effectively. The whole polonium poisoning thing just seems overkill for a government, but seems like a perfect way for a radical group to send a message. It's just a more sophisticated suicide bomber.
As I stated above, this is an opinion. Don't take it as gospel.