Final chapter of this spy thriller yet to be written
It’s a murder mystery filled with intrigue reminiscent of the Cold War - there’s a retired Russian spy poisoned by a radioactive substance, a secret dossier, a slain investigative journalist and a shadowy fugitive billionaire.
By Agencies |
LONDON: It’s a murder mystery filled with intrigue reminiscent of the Cold War — there’s a retired Russian spy poisoned by a radioactive substance, a secret dossier, a slain investigative journalist and a shadowy fugitive billionaire.
But the story of the agonising death of Alexander Litvinenko is an up-to-the-minute tale of politics, power and betrayal. And the final chapter of this spy thriller has not yet been written. The most crucial questions are unanswered: Was Litvinenko’s death murder? Who killed him? Where did they get the poison? Most intriguingly, who might have ordered his death?
The tale began after Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence officer, met with Mario Scaramella, an Italian security expert, in a London sushi bar November 1. Scaramella passed Litvinenko a secret file purportedly showing that both men were on a hit list of Kremlin opponents.
Both men somehow ingested polonium-210, a substance normally produced in nuclear reactors. Litvinenko fell ill and died, blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin. Scaramella was exposed to a smaller amount and showed no signs of illness, doctors said Saturday.
Investigators have found traces of radiation in at least a dozen sites across London, including two British Airways jetliners. Litvinenko’s wife was also contaminated with trace amounts of the poison, a friend said Friday, although she was not hospitalised.
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Litvinenko told a reporter in June that a new Russian law would permit authorities to target its opponents abroad. He feared he was among them. Another former Russian intelligence officer, Mikhail Trepashkin, wrote in a letter delivered Friday by human rights activists in Moscow that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor agency to the Soviet KGB, had created a hit squad to kill Litvinenko and other Kremlin foes. Trepashkin, who is serving a four-year sentence for divulging state secrets in a prison in Yekaterinburg, said he warned Litvinenko of the threat during a meeting in August 2002. The Kremlin has dismissed the accusations as fantasy.
But The Guardian newspaper on Friday reported that British intelligence sources suspect Litvinenko was the victim of a plot by “rogue elements” in the Russian state.
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