Litvinenko's wife & contact Po-210 positive....

[Dr Mordrid]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/litvinenkos-wife-and-italian-contaminated/2006/12/02/1164777835703.html

The wife of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko and a contact he met in a London sushi bar have both tested positive for traces of a radioactive substance following the former intelligence officer's death, friends and officials said.

Italian security expert Mario Scaramella was hospitalised after tests confirmed he had been exposed to polonium-210, the rare substance found in Litvinenko's body before he died on November 23.

Doctors said Scaramella had been exposed to a much lower level of the radioactive material. He met with Litvinenko at the Itsu sushi restaurant on November 1, the day the ex-Russian spy believed he was given the poison that eventually killed him.

Marina Litvinenko had shown no ill effects after she was confirmed as having shown traces of the same substance, the ex-spy's friend Alex Goldfarb said on Friday.

"She is very slightly contaminated," Goldfarb told The Associated Press. "There are no dangerous levels, no treatment, no hospitalisation."

Dr Keith Paterson, of London's University College Hospital, said Scaramella had shown "no symptoms of radiation poisoning."

"Tests have detected polonium-210 in Mr Scaramella's body, but at a considerably lower level than Mr. Litvinenko," Paterson said.
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And;

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/01122006/344/letters-revealed-secret-hit-squad.html

Detectives are investigating letters smuggled out of Russia purporting to show the existence of a secret squad set up to target poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko and others.

Scotland Yard has been passed copies of two letters apparently penned in jail by former Russian intelligence officer Mikhail Trepashkin, in one of which Mr Litvinenko is warned that both he and his family are at risk.
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Mr Trepashkin tells his friend that he had met an FSB contact near a railway station in Russia who told him that a "very serious group" had been set up, which "will knock out all those associated with Berezovsky and Litvinenko".

The letter says that Mr Trepashkin was urged to co-operate with the group and provide information on Mr Litvinenko and members of his family. Mr Goldfarb said the other letter, addressed to him and written on November 25, detailed an offer to be a witness in the British investigation.

Mr Goldfarb, who says that he can attest to the authenticity of the handwriting, said he had immediately passed the letters to police. Scotland Yard said that it could not confirm specific details on the investigation.

Also; planes on the Moscow to Heathrow run have been found to be contaminated and a former Russian official from the 90's was also poisoned, but the means is as yet unknown. Add to that several journalists critical of Moscow have been killed not to mention Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

OK, so when do people start taking this seriously? Either Russia is involved or someone is trying to frame them. Which do you think it is? If the latter is it the Chechens, AQ or ?? Will this rekindle the cold war if it is Russia? If not, why not?

BTW: deflecting by claiming the US "does the same thing" is disengenuous and BS, so don't even go there. This is about the here and now and Russia.

[KvHagedorn]

I don't think there's any question it's Putin. These methods are straight out of a Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum novel. It takes sophisticated resources and training to do the sort of things the KGB does (do you think Putin, as ex-chief of KGB would just let his old agency die?) He is steeped in the Russian authoritarian tradition, which is pretty much as brutal as the imagination will allow. The possibility that it was the Chechens (and I would implicate those lower than dirt mass child-murderers if I could) is highly unlikely. It's too subtle and the strategy is too convoluted for them to kill off the enemies of their enemies in this way.