Yushchenko, Politkovskaya, Litvinenko, and Gaidar?
Published Thu, Nov 30 2006 3:18 PM
Technorati Tags: News and Politics
People that run afoul of the current Russian administration seem to turn up with a sudden, mysterious, potentially fatal illness. First, the pro-western Ukrainian Victor Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxins leading up to a run-off election against pro-Moscow Viktor Yanukovitch. Then investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was murdered last month. Then Alexander Litvinenko was murdered using Polonium 210, a rare radioactive mineral that could only have been produced in a nuclear facility. Now former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar may have also been poisoned.
From the Daily Mail:
Doctors treating former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, who is gravely ill, believe he was poisoned. It follows the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko from poisoning and the discovery of radioactive material at 12 UK sites as four BA planes were grounded.
The call came as an aide to Mr Gaidar revealed doctors treating the formier Premier in Dublin believe he has been poisoned.
"Doctors don't see a natural reason for the poisoning and they have not been able to detect any natural substance known to them" in Gaidar's body, spokesman Valery Natarov said. "So obviously we're talking about poisoning (and) it was not natural poisoning."
Gaidar, 50, one of the leaders of a liberal opposition party who served briefly as prime minister in the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin, began vomiting and fainted during a conference in Ireland on Friday, and was rushed into intensive care at a hospital.
Gaidar's illness follows the poisoning of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London just one day before Gaidar fell ill.
The incident came amid heightened suspicions in the UK about the poisoning of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died a day before Mr Gaidar fell ill. The former spy worked as a bodyguard to Mr Gaidar at one point during his career.
...
The decision to ground three commercial passenger planes is another extension of the net which has already seen searches for signs of contamination at a string of London locations.
It throws the spotlight back on to a meeting that Mr Litvinenko had with another former KGB agent, Andrei Lugovoy, in London's Millennium Hotel on the day he was apparently poisoned with polonium 210.
Two Russians who met Mr Litvinenko in the hotel that day are thought to have travelled on the grounded aircraft. Security sources described yesterday's developments as 'potentially very significant'.
If police discover traces of polonium 210 on an aircraft that travelled to London before November 1, when Mr Litvikenko became ill, the finger of blame for the poisoning would point to Moscow. Meanwhile, the Health Protection Agency revealed that as of midnight last night, NHS Direct had received 1,325 calls from members of the public worried about radiation contamination.
It seems likely that someone in Russia is trying to stifle dissent. I wonder what they have to hide.
Earlier posts:
Linked at Basil's Blog, Assorted Babble by Suzie.
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