Thallium Poisoning? The KGB Has Not Lost Its Touch.

[Squink]

British police probe ex-spy’s poisoning

The police must now treat this as an urgent case of attempted murder. Their inquiries will naturally focus on Mr Litvinenko’s meeting with an Italian at a Japanese restaurant in London, although the sushi may be a red herring.

In the rice, or Ricin , these guys still play for keeps.

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

And don’t forget Viktor Yushchenko.

[Larry_Borgia]

It can’t be Putin. Bush looked into his soul and saw that he was good.

[Marley23]

@Squink

Their inquiries will naturally focus on Mr Litvinenko’s meeting with an Italian at a Japanese restaurant in London, although the sushi may be a red herring.

Mmmm, red herring with heavy metal. I think it’s more probable that the poisoning happened not when Litvinenko met with Mario Scaramella for sushi, but earlier that day, when he met with two Russians, one of them a former KGB agent.
I read in a New York Times article that a grenade was thrown into his home some time ago.

This shouldn’t shock me after what happened to Yuschenko, I guess. But it does. Not that I think much of George W. Bush, but I’m amazed he is comfortable smiling and joking with “Pooty-poot.” All of which remains true even if Putin isn’t involved with this.

[Nancarrow]

Hmm. Can’t find any other threads on this.

Well, he’s gone.

Apparently both thallium and radioactivity poisoning have been ruled out. They either don’t have a clue what happened, or they’re not saying.

[Pushkin]

Some odd objects were detected in his lower digestive tract, now the unfortunate sod’s dead the doctors can perhaps find out what they are.

[Morgyn]

@Pushkin

Some odd objects were detected in his lower digestive tract, now the unfortunate sod’s dead the doctors can perhaps find out what they are.

The doctors say the “objects” are most likely shadows caused by Prussian Blue, which is used to treat thallium or cesium poisoning.

[Baron_Greenback]

They are now saying it was Polonium poisoning.

[Nancarrow]

The smart money’s on neodymium.

[Tuckerfan]

I’m betting on the Beijing Cocktail, myself.

[RumMunkey]

@Morgyn

The doctors say the “objects” are most likely shadows caused by Prussian Blue, which is used to treat thallium or cesium poisoning.

Huh, I always thought that was a white supremest girl-band!

[Diceman]

Hmmm. This morning, the news sites were saying he’d been poisoned with a radioactive substance. Now they’re back to “unknown illness.”

I guess when Russian intelligence punches your clock, you’re done :eek:

[Baron_Greenback]

@Diceman

Hmmm. This morning, the news sites were saying he’d been poisoned with a radioactive substance. Now they’re back to “unknown illness.”

I guess when Russian intelligence punches your clock, you’re done :eek:

He was poisoned with Polonium 210, source unknown.

[Marley23]

@Struan

He was poisoned with Polonium 210, source unknown.

Sounds like it happened at the sushi restaurant.

“Traces of Polonium-210 were found at the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, the Millennium Hotel, Grosvenor Square, and at Mr. Litvinenko’s home in Muswell Hill, London,” Scotland Yard said in a statement. “We are not prepared to discuss further.”

[ouryL]

@Struan

They are now saying it was Polonium poisoning.

named after Polonius, Ophelia’s father?

[asterion]

@ouryL

named after Polonius, Ophelia’s father?

Named after Poland, the homeland of Marie Curie (who discovered it along with her husband.)

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

That goes to show you…you just don’t fuck with the KGB. For the same reasons, you don’t fuck with Suge Knight, either.

[Tuckerfan]

Something just occured to me: No one is asking where the polonium came from if the Russian government wasn’t behind this. IIRC, it’s not something you’d be able to find in say a medical lab, so if it didn’t come from the Russian government, where did it come from? Given that there’s supposedly a huge blackmarket for radioactive materials, you’d think that people would be asking that question.

[Anne_Neville]

@Tuckerfan

Something just occured to me: No one is asking where the polonium came from if the Russian government wasn’t behind this. IIRC, it’s not something you’d be able to find in say a medical lab, so if it didn’t come from the Russian government, where did it come from?

You can buy polonium-210 on the Internet.

[BrainGlutton]

From The Nation’s website, 12/10/06:

But what is also emerging, as the investigation and radioactivity spread to Germany, is an alternative hypothesis, a counter-story–focusing on the business dealings of members of Russia’s private security industry and the security (and health) risks posed by trafficking of the dangerous (and extremely valuable) radioactive isotope polonium 210.

(To its credit, the New York Times’s William Broad–in two stories, “Polonium, $22.50 Plus tax,” Dec. 3, 2006, and “US and Foreign Regulators Consider Tightening Controls on Deadly Polonium 210,” Dec. 10–debunked the conventional media line that only the Kremlin had the wherewithal to administer a lethal dose. Broad writes that “public and private inquiries have shown that it proliferated quite widely during the nuclear era, of late as an industrial commodity.”)

See also Edward J. Epstein’s blog.