Lugovoi faces Litvinenko murder charge

[Skeptic]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2085363,00.html

Andrei Lugovoi, one of the Russian men who met Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill with polonium poisoning, is to be charged with his murder.
The director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, said he had instructed lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service to seek the early extradition of Mr Lugovoi from Moscow to Britain to stand trial "for this extraordinarily grave crime".

"I have today concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoi with the murder of Mr Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning," Sir Ken said this morning. "I have further concluded that a prosecution of this case would clearly be in the public interest."

Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, said today she had told the Russian ambassador she expected Moscow's "full cooperation" in Britain's efforts to extradite Mr Lugovoi.
Mr Litvinenko's widow, Marina, welcomed the decision to charge Mr Lugovoi.

"I am now very anxious to see that justice is really done and that Mr Lugovoi is extradited and brought to trial in a UK court," she said.

Mr Lugovoi has denied any involvement in the murder of Mr Litvinenko, a vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin's regime who lived in exile in north London with his family.

Mr Litvinenko died in hospital on November 23, having ingested a fatal dose of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 three weeks earlier. On the day he fell ill, Mr Litvinenko had met Mr Lugovoi and another Russian businessman, Dmitry Kovtun, at the Pine bar of the Millennium hotel in Mayfair, London, before lunching with an Italian academic, Mario Scaramella, at a sushi bar in Piccadilly. Traces of polonium-21o were later found at both locations.

A number of staff at the Millennium hotel were also contaminated with polonium-210. Traces of the substance were found at several offices and hotels Mr Lugovoi visited in the capital, and also on board a British Airways plane in which he travelled. He was treated for suspected radiation poisoning in Russia.

On his return to Moscow, 41-year-old Mr Lugovoi called a press conference to deny any involvement in Mr Litvinenko's murder, citing the fact that his wife and children had also been contaminated with polonium-210. "To think that I would handle the stuff and put them at risk is ludicrous," he said. "Someone is trying to set me up. But I can't understand who. Or why."

The Russian constitution protects citizens from forcible extradition, although there have been suggestions that the Kremlin might be prepared to hand over Mr Lugovoi in exchange for Boris Berezovsky, another opponent of the Putin regime who lives in exile in London. However, UK courts have ruled that Mr Berezovsky, an oligarch who fell out with Mr Putin, could not expect a fair trial in Russia.

Mr Lugovoi was a KGB platoon commander and bodyguard before moving into private security. He was head of security at a TV company jointly owned by Mr Berezovsky, and set up Pershin, a company specialising in security, soft drinks and wine.

Mr Berezovsky told the BBC in February that Mr Litvinenko had blamed Mr Lugovoi for poisoning him. In a statement he dictated from his deathbed, Mr Litvinenko said Mr Putin might "succeed in silencing one man, but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate in your ears for the rest of your life".

[Pincher]

[Micpsi]

Because Litvinenko himself was unsure (there were several suspects then) until told by the police when it was he had been poisoned, namely, before he had sushi with Scaramella. Then he switched his suspicion to the occasion the police now know he was poisoned - the bar in the Millennium Hotel, where he had tea with Lugovoi and two others.

The police suspect Lugovoi because they found traces of Polonium 210 in a hotel in London he had stayed at two weeks before meeting Litvinenko (Newsnight, 22/7/07). However, this does not prove his guilt because, supposing he was being set up as the patsy for Litvinenko's murder, someone following Lugovoi could have planted traces of the radio-active substance in his hotel, thereby duping the police into inferring that Lugovoi must have been the one carrying the substance around London and therefore the murderer. Personally, I find the notion of an ex-FSB agent carelessly leaving traces of the substance around London and on planes to Moscow absurd. If the Russians wanted to quieten what they regarded as a traitor who had accused Putin of being a paedophile on a 'Free Chechin' website, they did not need to spend £100 million on a poison that created a trail leading to Moscow and which took several weeks to act! A bullet to the head would have been enough. No. This was done by some party who wanted the death to become long-lasting international news with political consequences in order to create bad publicity for Putin. And it has. You don't have to look far to see who might have had a good motive for a false-flag black op that would get Putin blamed. Who are Putin's enemies in Britain?

[Pincher]

[karlos]

The only way for this guy who is probably innocent to be extradited to stand trial in Britain is if Britain agrees to extradite to Russia the many fugitives living here like Boris Berezovsky.
Only wwhen Britain agrees to extradite these criminals can it hope to get russia to quid pro quo.

[Craig W]

I found this on Debkafile. Not sure what to make of it and not sure how much I trust Debka. It's dated November 2006 so probably old news but the idea that Litvinenko may have been a double agent (for Israel...? was his "conversion" to Islam a misdirection to make this idea look inconceivable...?) is news to me. Putin has made himself unpopular with some of the Zionist oligarchs. Could this have been a Mossad false flag hit on their behalf, designed to ostracise/pressurise Putin?

I could be barking up the wrong tree but that is the nature of such matters.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=3540

[Pincher]

Post Deleted

[karlos]

Litvinenko converted to what?
That clearly is disinformation
and news to his wife and family

He worked for Berezovsky of course he was a double agent for Israel as are all of the oligarchs.

[Pincher]