By ALAN COWELL
The decision by the coroner, Andrew Reid, on Thursday came almost exactly five years since Mr. Litvinenko died after ingesting a rare radioactive isotope, polonium 210, believed by the police to have been slipped into a teapot at an upscale hotel in Grosvenor Square on Nov. 1, 2006, just weeks after he had acquired British citizenship by naturalization.
His death 22 days later caused widespread alarm that such highly toxic material could be brought into the British capital apparently with impunity. Britain subsequently brought murder charges against Andrei K. Lugovoi, a former K.G.B. bodyguard and business associate who is now a member of the Russian Parliament. But Russia refused to extradite him, saying its Constitution did not permit such measures. Mr. Lugovoi denies murdering Mr. Litvinenko.
The standoff led to a chill in British-Russian relations redolent of the cold war, with tit-for-tat expulsions and reprisals against British officials in Russia. Only last month, when Prime Minister David Cameron visited Moscow, did the two countries seem to agree, in Mr. Cameron’s words, to “work together to advance our mutual interests” in trade, investment, energy and other areas.
Word of a public inquest could well end the thaw, however, particularly since the coroner, Mr. Reid, offered support for a “preliminary view that there should be further investigations into the wider circumstances” surrounding Mr. Litvinenko’s death. That would raise the question — unresolved so far — of whether the Russian authorities had a hand in the killing.
Mr. Reid also ordered the British police and security services to make further inquiries into the death, according to the newspaper The Evening Standard, which reported that the coroner had agreed in principle to an inquiry comparable in its scope to the inquest into the London subway and bus bombings of July 2005. The coroner did not say when the inquest would formally open.
Mr. Litvinenko, 43 at the time of his death, was a critic of Vladimir V. Putin, who was then president, and had sought to expose what he called wrongdoing within the F.S.B. security service, the K.G.B.’s domestic successor. Mr. Litvinenko had worked for the K.G.B. and the F.S.B. before he fled Russia in 2000. On his deathbed, Mr. Litvinenko blamed Mr. Putin for his demise.
“Did Russia murder Litvinenko is a question that this inquest, if it is going to do anything in the public interest, has got to be in a position to answer,” Ben Emmerson, a lawyer for the Litvinenko family, told the coroner.
A former head of Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service, Lord Ken Macdonald, said recently that he had the “gravest suspicions” of Moscow’s involvement.
The timing of the coroner’s decision seemed to reflect the growing frustration of the Litvinenko family with the absence of any other legal moves to investigate the case. An inquiry was “not going to happen in Russia, and it never will,” Mr. Emmerson said.
The Russian authorities say they are prepared to investigate the killing, and accuse the British authorities of failing to cooperate by handing over their findings.
The British authorities had sought a narrow inquiry focusing more on technical issues, apparently to prevent the emergence of broader issues that could damage relations with Moscow.
The British police said on Thursday that they had delivered further evidence to prosecutors, and Mr. Reid indicated that he would await their response before proceeding.
In Britain a coroner’s court can establish the circumstances and causes of death, but criminal courts are responsible for the prosecution of suspects.
Mr. Lugovoi, the accused killer, was also represented at Thursday’s hearing by a lawyer, Jessica Simor, who said the inquest should investigate “all other possibilities including death by misadventure and suicide,” British news reports said on Friday.
“We do not accept that there is an indisputable verdict of unlawful killing in this case,” she said, echoing assertions by Mr. Lugovoi that Mr. Litvinenko had acquired the polonium and ended up poisoning himself.
Marina Litvinenko, Mr. Litvinenko’s widow, said the inquiry would include “an investigation into the involvement of the Russian state in his murder, which is exactly what I want.”
Not in the news...side two
19 October 2011
An aggressive Russia – War or something else? (Source: LionHeart)
For the Russians to be poisoning a dissident agent with polonium 210 in London potentially causing a major Nuclear incident in the UK’s Capital City was a "serious-credible" incident but we only know of one death that has come from it and that is Litvinenko’s.How and why did Litvinenko get so close to someone carrying such a substance?
Im sure the Russians could have done a much cleaner job than contaminate London with one of the most hazardous nuclear substances known to man. The only way of obtaining such grade is from a State Nuclear Industrial source. That source led all the way back to Russia (Literally).
What is the greater significance?
The Russian finger prints all over it.
Why?
Was it a Russian sponsored terrorist act upon British soil in peace time?
Or was Litvinenko attempting to buy the substance on-behalf of the Chechens from what he thought was a reliable rogue KGB source, who then turned around and murdered him?
It is noted that Litvinenko became a converted Chechen moslem.
Why would Chechen moslem converts living in Britain linked to Russia be on the black market looking to buy the chemical needed for the trigger mechanisms inside suitcase nuclear bombs. And why London?
Russians killed 2 birds with one stone.
Exposed the nature of the threat now within the UK and killed one of the direct threats in the process, not just to the UK but America and Russia too, and then showed you everything that was carried out and why, that’s why poisoning him with the chemical he wanted to purchase couldn’t leave anyone in any doubt, especially not because Russia knows the whole game and the threat that we all face because those missing suitcase nukes are ultimately theirs from a by-gone era.
The Russians know about the Chechens in the UK raising funds for their Islamic war against Russia.
The Chechens are like wild dogs with no sense of humanity when it comes to war that’s why they targeted a school in Russia and set bombs off and killed as many children as possible for the shock tactic within terrorism against the Russian State.
Anders Breivik carried out an almost identical style attack which was carried out for sheer shock tactic against the Norwegian State just like the Chechens.
If you blow up what could be perceived as a legitimate target i.e a government building, then those inside would be viewed as collateral damage for being in the building in the first place.
To hunt down and kill 69 innocent kids on their summer camp whilst dressed as a police officer to lure them out into a false sense of security as an act of political terrorism, was not what could be perceived as a legitimate target in most sane people’s minds.
Except of course, the extreme far-right who despise the European Marxist Elites.
The only other type of terrorist groups out there who carry out such attacks as acts of terrorism are the Chechens. They have form for it.
There is talk of Breivik being trained in Belerus by an ex-Soviet Colonel who it is stated is a Chechen moslem convert after marrying the daughter of a Chechen leader.
Is Russia a friend or foe for spreading polonium 210 around London and killing a rouge Russian moslem dissident in the process?
Relations over the Nuclear incident cant be that bad after the British PM just visited the Country.
Russians, Chechens, British/foreign Jihadi’s and suitcase nuclear bombs.
What if?
Who would be the first person you go too if you were a defeated Soviet Colonel who had suitcase nukes to trade?
Osama Bin Laden.
How many of those missing Soviet made suitcase nuclear bombs have been retrieved?
I should imagine a few in Afghanistan where their Pakistani nuclear engineers worked on them, with a few scrap ones laying about, probably retrieved by Coalition forces, and the rest, primed and sent out into the world pre-911.
Then Bin Laden declared war against a Nuclear Nation (America) with the threat of nuclear terrorism as the ultimate weighing balance within the war. America is the only Super Power left for Islam to conquer before having military dominance across the whole earth based upon the military wing of the ‘Ummah’ now waging Jihad against the West. That is the ultimate aim of Islam based upon the Koran, and Bin Laden’s call for a global jihad against America and the West is to assert Islam’s dominance upon the earth globally through terrorism until Islam eventually rules the earth.
Holy War in the chemical nuclear and biological age...
The military wing of the ‘Ummah’ in Afghanistan destroyed the Soviets and now believe it is their destiny to destroy America. They are religious fanatics who do not believe anything other than their war in gods name against America and the West and dying in the process waging that war and there can only be one winner at the end of a war.
Who was in the market to buy and sell Polonium 210 to Litvinenko the moslem? Or is there a bigger meaning.
All Foreign governments know that it is only a matter of time until a large scale chemical, nuclear or biological weapon goes off somewhere in the World, in the name of the global Jihad.
There are millions of crazed lunatics around the world even living in Britain who want to kill us in the name of their religion and in the process think they are doing god a favour by ridding the earth of us unbelieving infidel scum so that Islam can cover the whole earth.
Its just when and where, and what protective preventative measures are in place to track those suitcase nukes in their possession before they set them off. Or what procedures are in place for the day after?
21st Century warfare in the Nuclear age with Iran now the Worlds No.1 State sponsor of terror along with a wealth of nuclear knowledge after its own highly publicised programme.
The coming Islamic terrorism in the nuclear age.
Docum drama: Dirty bomb in London - Part 2
