Alexander
Litvinenko, an ex-KGB officer, died of polonium poisoning
in London last November. On May 22 Britain officially requested
the extradition of Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoy, who
had at least a dozen meetings with Litvinenko in London
last year. In announcing the request, Ken Macdonald, head
of public prosecutions in Britain, explained, "I have today
concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is
sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoy with the murder of Mr.
Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning." The police report had
been forwarded to his office in January, but Macdonald left
unexplained why, if the evidence in the report was that
compelling, his office sat on it for three months without
taking any action. In any case, the extradition request
was inoperative, since the Russian government had stated
categorically in advance (December 5, 2006) that it would
not extradite a Russian citizen to a foreign country. While
the belated request did little to advance the case, it ignited
a media firestorm, with op-eds and screaming headlines around
the world. The Cannes Film Festival even decided to screen
a documentary on Litvinenko's death. As for the actual status
of the evidentiary case, to date:
***
In Russia, prosecutors have
not received an official statement from British authorities
on the reasons for Litvinenko's death. Prosecutor General
Yury Chaika reported May 25, "To date, the Russian prosecutor's
office has not received any official documents or materials
on the Litvinenko case...[or] seen the report from British
medical experts on the official cause of Litvinenko's death."
***
In the absence of evidence,
the Russian Authorities have filed no charges in the Litvinenko
case.
*** In Britain, the coroner’s office has not released
a report on Litvinenko’s death or on the autopsy conducted
in late November. So there is still no official cause of
death. Nor is it medically established when, how or the
number of occasions on which he ingested polonium 210. This
leaves open the possibility that Litvinenko accidentally
ingested a speck of Polonium 210 that had leaked out of
the container.
*** The Crown prosecutors, meanwhile, awaiting a reply to
their extradition request that has been turned down, have
not indicted anyone.
*** In Germany, authorities still investigating the smuggling
of polonium
through Hamburg have not filed any charges .
***- The source of the polonium 210, a rare isotope produced
by nuclear reactors, remains a mystery. Polonium samples
from Litvinenko’s body have not been provided to Russia
and other governments that have such reactors. And Russian
scientists are unable to trace the Polonium to any known
source inside Russia.
*** No timeline has been scientifically established showing
when people and premises were contaminated in Britain, Russia
and Germany by polonium 210, including:
1) Boris Berezovsky’s offices in London. Berezovsky,
the fugitive Russian billionaire, is involved in, as he
described the enterprise to the The Guardian ,
a plot to overthrow Putin, had employed Litvinenko as an
advisor and was negotiating a business arrangement with
Lugovoy.
2) Lugovoy, who met with both Litvinenko and Berezovsky
in London;
3) Dmitry Kovtun, a Russian security consultant, who also
Lugovoy and Litvinenko in London, and traveled to Germany
in October.
4) Mario Scaramella, a self-styled Italian investigator
who dined with
Litvinenko at the Itsu sushi restaurant just before Litvinenko
went
to the hospital.
The
chronological ordering of who contaminated who, and which
offices, has been badly compromised by the long delay in
forensic examinations of the possible crime scenes. Three
weeks or more elapsed between the time Litvinenko entered
the hospital and the examination of the trail of polonium
in offices, restaurants, hotels , airplanes, and people.
During that interval, the specks of dust containing the
minute quantities of byproducts necessary to date the Polonium
210 were scattered. For example, the hotel teapot in which
a trace of polonium was found had been repeatedly put through
the hotel dishwasher over three weeks. So it
may be impossible to date the exposures accurately.
***
Scaramella is the only person arrested so far. After being
hospitalized for exposure to the isotope, he was jailed
by Italian
authorities on an unrelated charge of “calumny,”
because he had
accused Ukrainian former KGB agents of trying to assassinate
him.
Denied bail, he remains under house arrest.
Even
if the legal processes in Britain, Russia, Germany and Italy
remain stymied, and no one has produced a witness to explain
why
polonium 210 was smuggled into London and the medical evidence
is not yet known, the unsubstantiated accusations continue,
with Lugovoy now blaming the British Secret Service.
Meanwhile, Hollywood has
rushed in to fill the factual void. Columbia Pictures acquired
the movie rights to Death of a Dissident, written
by Alex Goldfarb (an executive at Berezovsky’s foundation)
and Litvinenko’s widow, Marina; and Warner Brothers
and Initial Entertainment optioned the unwritten book Sasha’s
Story: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy, by Alan Cowell,
the New York Times correspondent in London covering the
Litvinenko story, for a movie starring Johnny Depp. W hat
remains to be seen is whether movies will
come out before—or after—the coroner’s
report.
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