The Litvinenko Murder Case Gets Stranger and Stranger

This just in (from Reuters UK): Second case of radiation poisoning

Scientists probing the death of Alexander Litvinenko said on Friday a second man had been poisoned by the same radiation that killed the former Russian spy.

Media reports said the man was Mario Scaramella, an Italian contact whom Litvinenko met at a London sushi restaurant on November 1, the same day he fell ll.

There's lots more, here and here and here for example.

Meanwhile: reports from Britain claim Letters 'revealed secret hit squad'

Detectives are investigating letters smuggled out of Russia purporting to show the existence of a secret squad set up to target poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko and others.

Scotland Yard has been passed copies of two letters apparently penned in jail by former Russian intelligence officer Mikhail Trepashkin, in one of which Mr Litvinenko is warned that both he and his family are at risk.

Mr Litvinenko's London friend Alex Goldfarb said scans of the letters came into his possession on Thursday and he passed them to Scotland Yard.

Mr Trepashkin, who worked for the KGB's successor the FSB until 1997, was tried in 2004, accused of being a British spy and passing secret information to Mr Litvinenko and his close friend the tycoon Boris Berezovsky, both exiled in London.

Meanwhile: Larisa's latest on this case is cool.

Her blog is way cool and getting cooler by the day. Guest journalist David Dastych boils it all down:

On Litvinenko's assassination:

1. The only truth: he was killed by Polonium-210 isotope (and perhaps by some other poisonous substance, too).

2. Cause: not known; given: his opposition to the Putin's regime.

3. Perpetrators: not known, possibly Russian intelligence operators.

and so on...

BTW Seeing Luke Ryland on Sibel Edmonds and Heroin at Larisa's blog is ultra-cool.

And as I've been saying, they all know a lot more than I do. So you can leave comments here if you like but don't expect me to answer your questions except for the occasional "I dunno", which I throw in every now and then simply in order not to appear rude.

That said, please consider this a half-open thread; not quite as open as the threads which start with cartoons, but certainly a place where you can speak freely about the Litvinenko murder case, no matter what you think about it...

as requested; ;-) BB2!

Larisa on al-Q'aeda, Larisa and Chris on Litvinenko

It's been a while since I've seen anything about al-Q'aeda from Larisa Alexandrovna and I've been wondering what she's been thinking. Apparently she's been thinking mostly about a couple of prominent Russians who have been murdered in public and horrible ways. So I've been reading her about that.

Personally, I know one or two things about Russia -- but that's all! I am way out of my depth on these Russian murders, especially compared to people like Larisa and Chris Floyd, so I've been reading them and keeping quiet, mostly. Larisa, by the way, has her own blog now (At-Largely), and Chris is still firing away at his (Empire Burlesque), and in addition to his column at TruthOut, Chris has Atlantic Free Press happening now, and Larisa now is managing editor at Raw Story. Hint, hint! to anyone without these sites bookmarked, heh heh! Empire Burlesque. Raw Story. Atlantic Free Press. At-Largely. Thank you.

Anyway, Larisa, while dismissing the strangest sort of BS you'll ever see (or is it?), got talking about al-Q'aeda as follows:

I am so sick of every terrorist group being called Al Qaeda - which is a nonsensical term that no longer applies to the actual situation of international terrorism. The group was a small terrorist organization, one among many. Now every terror group is being called Al Qaeda and the fact is, that they are different groups being mislabeled, which gives the impression that Al Qaeda monster is the size of a massive army. MEK and PKK are not Al Qaeda, for example. Gray Wolves and the Muslim Brotherhood are not Al Qaeda, as another example. All of these groups have more members, more funding, and are fully legitimized within their own countries and/or are given a free pass. We don't hear much about them.

Even our dear leader thinks Al Qaeda is the army we are fighting in Iraq. The reality is we are fighting mostly a domestic insurgency and quite frankly, we are caught in a civil war. There is a small percentage of foreign fighters and maybe a small fraction of those are members of Al Qaeda. It is important to know these things and to discuss them intelligently. It is important to understand who our enemies are and what their agenda is. To lump them all together makes opaque or murky each group's individual agenda, which we need to know and follow. I believe they used to call this thinking strategically, which is something that faith-based wars don't include.

So ... now go over and read "I call BS, the latest Litvinenko Disinfo". Please.

And please read Chris Floyd on this if you haven't already done so, at Empire Burlesque or Atlantic Free Press or even TruthOut:

Pale Fire and London Fog: Illuminating Outliers in the Death of Alexander Litvinenko

Everyone knows that Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko was killed by radiation poisoning in London last month. But beyond that bare fact, almost nothing is clear about the case. The truth has disappeared, probably forever, into the shadowlands - that murky confluence of crime, violence, money and politics where so much of the real business of the world is conducted. However, an examination of some of the curiously overlooked aspects of the affair might send at least a few shafts of light into the cloud of unknowing that has enveloped Litvinenko's death.
...

Seriously. Read it! It's good.