Poisoned former KGB man dies in hospital
Pastor Dale Morgan
Poisoned former KGB man dies in hospital*
Friends insist on Kremlin link to Russian exile's unexplained death
Ian Cobain, Jeevan Vasagar and Lee Glendinning
Friday November 24, 2006
The Guardian
Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent living in exile in London,
died in hospital last night, three weeks after apparently ingesting a
mysterious poison which has baffled doctors.
In a statement at 11pm, a spokesman for University College hospital, Jim
Down, said: "We are sorry to announce that Alexander Litvinenko died at
9.21pm." He said "every avenue" had been explored in the hospital's
attempt to save him. "He was seriously ill when he was admitted on
November 17 and the medical team at the hospital did everything possible
to save his life."
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Mr Litvinenko, 43, a fierce critic of the Russian president, Vladimir
Putin, suffered a heart attack on Wednesday night and his condition had
been deteriorating rapidly.
Hours before losing consciousness, as medical staff struggled to
discover what had caused the critical illness, the former intelligence
officer told a friend, the film-maker Andrei Nekrasov, how much he
wanted to live. "I want to survive, just to show them," he told Mr
Nekrasov, who spoke to the Times. "The bastards got me, but they won't
get everybody."
Scotland Yard said last night it was treating the matter as an
"unexplained death" which is being investigated by its counter terrorism
unit.
Oleg Gordievsky, the most senior KGB agent ever to defect to Britain,
said it was clear that his friend had been poisoned by the Kremlin. "He
was a hero of Russia, a hero of Britain, he loved Britain as much as he
loved Russia," Mr Gordievsky told Sky News. "He was fighting against the
evil forces in Russia, against the KGB and against the authorities. He
became a victim of rancour and revenge and malice, of the forces of
Russia. It is the first time in the history of Britain that a British
citizen has been killed by a hostile security service on British soil."
Leaving the hospital last night, a family friend, Alex Goldfarb, who
became something of a spokesman for Mr Litvinenko while he was ill, said
he was terribly shocked. He told BBC News 24 that his friend had died
with "a clear conscience, a clear heart and with dignity".
"We are all shocked and horrified at this terrible crime. Tonight is a
night of mourning."
He said he was confident that doctors would eventually find out what had
killed Mr Litvinenko. "It will probably take some time, but as far as
the family is concerned it really is irrelevant at this moment."
Dr Andrea Sella, a chemistry expert from University College London, said
the difficulty facing doctors trying to trace the cause of the illness
was knowing what to look for. "They have a problem. They have to find
some unspecified poison and they don't know what it is," said Dr Sella.
"They don't know whether it is a single substance or a mixture."
The saga began on November 1 when Mr Litvinenko meet two Russian men,
one of them a former KGB officer, at a London hotel on November 1. Later
that day he meet the Italian academic Mario Scaramella at a sushi bar in
Piccadilly where it is said he received documents claiming to name the
killers of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another vocal
critic of President Putin, who was shot outside her Moscow flat on
October 7.
Several hours later he began to feel unwell and was admitted to
hospital. Ten days later he spoke of it being a "serious poisoning". By
November 17, his condition worsening, he was placed under armed guard in
hospital and reports emerged that he might have been poisoned with
thallium, a highly toxic substance.
Photographs then appeared of a gaunt, jaundiced figure who had lost his
hair. Toxicologists studied his blood cells and speculated that he might
have been poisoned with radioactive thallium. Doctors later ruled out
poisoning by a number of substances and noted that his condition was
consistent with a form of cancer. Unconfirmed reports say some doctors
suspected he had been made seriously ill by a chemotherapy treatment.
Yesterday morning, police investigating the poisoning were looking into
the possibility that he might even have poisoned himself, the Guardian
has learned. Before Mr Litvinenko's death, Scotland Yard said it was not
running an attempted murder inquiry and senior officers are thought to
have harboured doubts about claims that he was the victim of a Kremlin
assassination plot.
Friends of Mr Litvinenko dismissed suggestions that he had poisoned
himself as "complete rubbish". "Why would anyone poison themselves?"
asked one.
"Nothing would suit the authorities in Britain more than for this to go
away; one of the best ways of making it go away is to prove that it was
not a poisoning. There is no question of him having done this to himself."
Intelligence sources also said that they could not rule out the
possibility that Mr Litvinenko's illness had been concocted in a way
that implicated the Kremlin or Russian intelligence services. "Poisoning
is a well known tactic of Russian intelligence, but not only of Russian
intelligence," said a Whitehall source, adding that whoever was behind
the affair might have wanted to frame the Russian authorities.
There was no comment on the death from Downing Street last night.
Another theory is that Mr Litvinenko was not poisoned at all, and that
his illness was the result of natural causes. Before the former KGB
agent's death, Dr Geoff Bellingan, the director of critical care at
University College hospital said: "We are now convinced that the cause
of Mr Litvinenko's condition was not a heavy metal such as thallium.
Radiation poisoning is also unlikely." However, the hospital dismissed
reports that X-rays had located three foreign bodies inside his
intestines. These were shadows caused by substances - notably Prussian
blue - which had been administered during his treatment, the hospital said.
The X-ray claims were the latest among a series of sometimes conflicting
stories that have emerged about Mr Litvinenko's condition. A public
relations campaign swung into action after his health deteriorated
suddenly a week ago, a campaign that was accompanied by repeated claims
that Mr Litvinenko had been the victim of a Kremlin assassination attempt.
One of London's leading public relations companies, headed by Lord Tim
Bell, Lady Thatcher's former advertising consultant, fielded media
queries about his condition. It also arranged for a photograph of Mr
Litvinenko in his hospital to be distributed to the media via a news agency.
A leading toxicologist, Professor John Henry, was contacted by a friend
of the sick Russian and spoke of his fears that the former spy had been
poisoned with thallium, a heavy metal, or with a radioactive substance.
Prof Henry had not been treating Mr Litvinenko, however, and the
hospital said he had not seen any of the test results when he first
raised his theories in media interviews.
Lord Bell's public relations consultancy is retained by Boris
Berezovsky, the multi-millionaire Russian oligarch who is a friend of Mr
Litvinenko. Mr Berezovsky also employs the individual who contacted Prof
Henry. The professor said yesterday that he was withdrawing because he
had had his "fingers burnt".
Mr Berezovsky, like Mr Litvinenko, is highly critical of Mr Putin, and
has faced a number of attempts to extradite him to Russia, most recently
after being accused of plotting a coup, a claim he denies.
Mr Litvinenko fled Russia six years ago. He is survived by his wife and
their 12-year-old son.