Litvenenko murder

[Lanya]

http://www.kommersant.com/p726539/r_527/Alexander_Litvinenko/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1961546,00.html

Guardian:   British intelligence sources increasingly suspect that Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy killed with a radioactive poison, was the victim of a plot involving "rogue elements" within the Russian state, the Guardian has learned.

    While ruling out any official involvement by Vladimir Putin's government, investigators believe that only those with access to state nuclear laboratories could have mounted such a sophisticated plot.

    Police were last night closing in on a group of men who entered the UK among a large crowd of Muscovite football fans. The group of five or more arrived shortly before Mr Litvinenko fell ill and attended the CSK Moscow match against Arsenal at the Emirates stadium on November 1. They flew back shortly afterwards. While describing them only as witnesses, police believe their presence could hold the key to the former spy's death. [...]

    Explaining the increasing belief that Mr Litvinenko's death involved Russian state elements, one official said yesterday: "Only the state would have access to that material".

    Officials now go so far as to say that the involvement of individuals within the FSB in the affair is "probable". But they insist that it is far from definite and the evidence is still circumstantial.

    Intelligence sources do not rule out the possibility that the perpetrators were "rogue elements" either still in the FSB or former members of it.
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[Plane]

I don't know if "sophisticated " is the right idea , a sophisticated crime looks like a natural event or no event at all.


"Blatant"?

[Lanya]

You're right.  Sophisticated, this is not.  They've left a trail many miles long and last I heard, 33,000 people were said to have flown on those planes, the ones contaminated by radiation. 
They're not up to Cold War style yet.   
Ah, the Bulgarian murder with the ricin-tipped umbrella, untraceable! Those were the days....

[Plane]

Putin was a member of the KGB , not a junior membereither.

If the KGB ever had a serious assassin Putin ought to know how to find him.

Secret poisons that are difficult to tell from natural disease would seem to be kinda easy.

That this is so far beneith the skill availible to Vladimir Putin is the most compelling reason to think that it was Putin himself behind the plot.

Putin would have to be devious to advance far in the KGB, and to  use unsophisticated means when sophisticated means are availible is devious, this means  Putin must be the most likely suspect .

[Lanya]

Wow, I agree with you again.

This is getting scary. 

[Xavier_Onassis]

It may SEEM sophisticated, but poisons that emit radioactivity are hardly as clever as is possible. There are ways of getting people to drop dead pretty much at the time desired, I have read. A sophisticated poison would be undetectable.

I certainly would not rule Putin out. He may have been a KGB official, but he probably was never a hands-on sort of operative. Occam's Razor suggests that the most likely suspect is usually the guilty party, so I am going to agree with you guys.

Throwing the Russkis out of the G-8 or making him think he has almost been thrown out would seem to be one useful thing to do in response.

The US is not much of a democracy, but it sure has the Russians beat.