Word: litvinenko
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Dates: during 2006-2006
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...Litvinenko got sick the evening of Nov. 1, when alpha particles were destroying the lining of his gut. As he began to suspect poison, he focused on two meetings he had earlier that day. One was at a sushi bar in central London with Mario Scaramella, 36, an Italian lawyer and, like Litvinenko, a man drawn to the world of secret information and conspiracy theories. The second meeting was in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel, near the U.S. embassy, with a group of Russian businessmen with whom Litvinenko was apparently hatching business ventures in Britain. "Alexander said both...
...last week his level of poisoning and other evidence exculpated him of any suspicion. Instead, the trail of polonium was entangling the group of Russians at the Pine Bar. All seven bartenders on duty that day tested positive for the substance, at levels approaching those found in members of Litvinenko's family, implying they had inhaled it soon after its release--possibly from the vapor given off by a drink into which it had been slipped. The Russians who met Litvinenko in the bar included Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard who had met Litvinenko in the 1990s when serving...
When Lugovoy learned that British authorities were investigating Litvinenko's poisoning, he volunteered for an interview at the British embassy in Moscow. Polonium was later found in the embassy room, and in lots of other places Lugovoy had visited: on planes he had flown between Moscow and London in October; in five rooms at the Sheraton Park Lane hotel, where he had stayed; and in a fourth-floor room at the Millennium Hotel he is said to have used on the day Litvinenko was poisoned. Finding polonium in a hotel Lugovoy had used on a previous trip to London prompted...
...whether the source was polonium 210. For their part, British officials were hoping further tests might let them pinpoint the origins of the polonium, since reactors usually leave signatures in their output. The forensic trail so far points decisively to Russia. But Scotland Yard knows that pursuing Litvinenko's murder back to those who set it in motion, whether official, private or some combination of the two, may never be possible unless someone confesses...
...Interior Ministry, FSB and those who have retired from them to join private security services "are running this country, own its economy and use violence and murder as habitual management techniques." A U.S. businessman in Moscow seconds the argument. "While you in the press are obsessed by Politkovskaya and Litvinenko, you've missed that half a dozen major oil executives and another half-dozen major bankers have been murdered in the last few months." Unlike Litvinenko's sickness, Russia's may not be fatal. But like his, it starts from inside. From his lead-lined coffin, a shadowy figure...