VARIOUS/FILE: Britain puts crack anti-terrorism police unit on the case of a former Russian spy, who was fighting for his life after being poisoned

Record ID: 1532587

  • Title: VARIOUS/FILE: Britain puts crack anti-terrorism police unit on the case of a former Russian spy, who was fighting for his life after being poisoned
  • Date: 21st November 2006
  • Summary: (EU) MOSCOW, RUSSIA (NOVEMBER 18, 2006) (REUTERS) DEAD BODY OF BAISAROV LAYING ON GROUND POLICE AT SITE
  • Embargoed: 6th December 2006 14:24
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA4SNFO32NM5VWB3DE7LOAD54YW
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Britain put its crack anti-terrorism police unit on the case of a former Russian spy, who was fighting for his life on Monday (November 20) after being poisoned in what his friends called a Kremlin assassination plot.
    Russia dismissed as "pure nonsense" suggestions it had ordered the murder of former agent Alexander Litvinenko, 41, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin.
    Evidence of a Kremlin hand in such an incident on British soil would have far-reaching diplomatic consequences at a time of mounting concern in the West at Moscow's human rights record.
    Litvinenko checked into a hospital at the beginning of the month after falling ill and was moved to another hospital when his condition worsened.
    Toxicology reports now show he was poisoned by thallium, a chemical weapon that can cause a slow, painful death over the course of weeks or months, even with treatment.
    Thallium attacks the nervous system lungs, heart, liver and kidneys. The colourless, odourless toxin results in hair loss, vomiting and diarrhoea. One gram can be enough to kill.
    Pictures released of him on Monday showed him strapped to medical equipment in hospital, wan and bald. Hair loss is one of thallium's effects.
    The hospital said Litvinenko's condition had deteriorated slightly overnight and he had been transferred to intensive care. Doctors say he has only a 50/50 chance of surviving.
    Police say they were called in to the case only last week -- two weeks after Litvinenko fell ill -- and are investigating whether he was deliberately poisoned.
    They said in a statement that the counter-terrorism branch of London's Metropolitan police had taken over the case.
    Officers were interviewing potential witnesses, including Litvinenko himself, studying his movements before he took sick and examining closed-circuit television pictures.
    Alexander Goldfarb, who helped Litvinenko defect to Britain six years ago, told Reuters the former spy was the victim of a plot directed from the heart of the Russian government.
    After visiting Litvinenko in hospital Goldfarb said his friend's condition was serious.
    "He is, he looks very bad, he lost all his hair so visually to me he looks very tired and he looks very much older than he really is. He is thin, he is still not eating so they are feeding him intravenously. Medically, as I understand from the the doctor, there are several danger points to his life. Obviously it may be a sudden heart failure or sudden kidney failure or sudden infection, because his bone marrow is not getting any signs of function so far," said Goldfarb, himself a Russian dissident who now has U.S. citizenship.
    Asked why he suspected Kremlin involvement, Goldfarb said Litvinenko was one of Putin's fiercest critics. Interviewed in the year 2000 Litvinenko said he had left Russia because he feared for his life and the safety of his family.
    An FSB spokesman declined comment and the Russian embassy in London described Litvinenko's case as an "accident".
    Litvinenko has said he fell ill after meeting a source at a sushi restaurant while looking into the case of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a Putin critic gunned down at her Moscow apartment last month.
    Alexei Mukhin, director general of the Moscow-based think tank Political Information Centre, said the Kremlin has no motive to assassinate its former spies.
    "Putin's position is strong enough and he doesn't need to solve problems in such a way," he said. "There is no political need for that," Mukhin said.
    Litvinenko, now a British citizen, co-authored a book in 2002 entitled "Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within", in which he alleged FSB agents co-ordinated apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people in 1999.
    The bombings, which authorities blamed on Chechen rebels, led to a shift in public opinion in Russia, affording Putin popular backing for his decision to move troops into Chechnya.
    On Saturday (November 18) Chechen special forces in Moscow shot dead the former head of security for assassinating Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov.
    Officials at the scene said Movlaidi Baisarov, who fell out of favour with Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov -- was killed during a police operation to arrest him for purported involvement in abductions and killings in Chechnya.
    Russian reports said the Chechen special forces officers were forced to shoot after Baisarov hurled a grenade at the arresting officers.
    Novaya Gazeta journalist Vyacheslav Izmailov linked Baisarov's murder with that of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya.
    Izmailov, who worked closely with Politkovskaya on her stories about human rights abuses in Chechnya, believed Kadyrov had ordered both killings.
    "What happened here in Moscow shows very clearly that the people of Kadyrov can do anything they like on Russian territory," Izmailov said.
    Kadyrov, 30, became the dominant force after his father President Akhmad Kadyrov, chief Muslim cleric in the separatist leadership who sided with Russia during the second Chechnya war, was killed in a bomb blast in May 2004.
    He controls hundreds of personal fighters who, with the Kremlin's blessing, impose order on Chechnya's streets alongside a police force that he, as prime minister, also runs.
    But Human rights groups and ordinary Chechens have accused Kadyrov and his paramilitary security force of kidnapping, torturing and killing civilians.
    In an interview with ITN television, Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB spy now living in London, blamed the KGB and Russia's secret police for poisoning Litvienko.
    "The KGB, the Secret Police of Russia is responsible for the assassination attempt," he said.
    Asked what evidence he has, Gordievsky replied:
    "Thallium, that's the poison, thallium. It is only in the possession of the KGB. No private person or organisation has got thallium."
    Gordievsky said Litvienko's outspoken criticism of Putin and his government angered many powerful people.
    "He was insulting both Putin and the KGB for 4 years every week," he said.
    Gordievsky added he feared for his life and those others like him.
    "Yes I fear for my life, more or less too because the KGB and the Putin regime is becoming so aggressive. So belligerent," he said.
    Poison is an old tool of Cold War spycraft. In 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident, was killed in London by a man who jabbed him with a poisoned umbrella.
    But there are worries such Cold War-era killings could make a comeback. Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko fell ill after dining with security service leaders before an election in 2004. Doctors found he was poisoned with dioxin.
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