Did a "highly placed" Russian have Litvinenko assassinated?
Published Mon, Dec 18 2006 3:04 PM
Technorati Tags: News and Politics
Reuters has published a report that indicates that Alexander Litvinenko's murder may have been due to a dossier he compiled on a "very highly placed member of Putin's administration".
LONDON (Reuters) - Murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was killed because of an eight-page dossier he had compiled on a powerful Russian figure for a British company, a business associate told the BBC on Saturday.
Litvinenko died in London on November 23 after receiving a lethal dose of radioactive polonium 210. On his deathbed, he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his killing. The Kremlin has denied involvement.
Ex-spy Yuri Shvets, who is based in the United States, said Litvinenko had been employed by Western companies to provide information on potential Russian clients before they committed to investment deals in the former Soviet Union.
He said Litvinenko was asked by a British company to write reports on five Russians and asked Shvets for help. The British company was not named. Shvets said he had passed Litvinenko the information for the dossier on one individual in September.
The BBC said it had obtained extracts of the dossier, which British detectives also have, from an unnamed source. The BBC said the report contained damaging personal details about a "very highly placed member of Putin's administration."
"Litvinenko obtained the report on September 20," Shvets told the BBC. "Within the next two weeks he gave the report to Andrei Lugovoy. I believe that triggered the entire assassination."
Lugovoy is a former Russian spy who told Reuters on Thursday he had known Litvinenko casually for nearly a decade and had worked closely with him during 2005, meeting him about 10 times.
Shvets said Litvinenko had given the dossier to Lugovoy to show him how reports on Russian companies and individuals should be presented to Western clients.
However, Shvets said he believed Lugovoy was still employed by the Russian secret service the FSB, the successor to the KGB, and had leaked Litvinenko's dossier to the Russian figure.
Shvets said the report had led to the British company pulling out of a deal, losing the Russian figure potential earnings of "dozens of millions of dollars."
So maybe this was political and maybe it was personal. The "Russian figure" may have used the state apparatus to carry out a personal vendetta. No wonder Russia has promised to block the extradition of the murderer...
Update: Fox News reports that over 15,000 times the amount of polonium you can buy over the Internet was used to poison Litvinenko, or 10 times the lethal dose. They also report on more obstructionism by the Russian's "cooperating" with British investigators...
The nine British detectives sent to Moscow to investigate the murder are likely to return home this week. Russian authorities have blocked their inquiries and left them on the sidelines as their own officials question the main figures in the investigation.
Security sources told The Times that Russian officials refused to ask Mr Kovtun and Mr Lugovoy questions to which the British team wanted answers. Aware of the diplomatic sensitivities of this case, police chiefs and politicians have avoided any public disagreement with Russia or criticised the way Yuri Chaika, the country' Prosecutor-General, has effectively hijacked the investigation.
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