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Posted: 05-03-2007 14:19 Post subject:

Doubts raised over London poison link to shooting in US

A former senior KGB officer who met a Russia intelligence expert just hours before his shooting in the US, yesterday expressed doubt that the incident was related to the case of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer poisoned last year in London.The Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting a local police inquiry into the shooting on Thursday of Paul Joyal, a former Senate intelligence committee security director and editor of a newsletter on Russia. Mr Joyal recently accused the Kremlin on US national television of involvement in the Litvinenko death.Oleg Kalugin, the former head of KGB counter-intelligence who on Thursday evening met Mr Joyal at Zola, a bar in the International Spy Museum building in Washington, said he would not rule out a connection with the Litvinenko case. But he said the shooting was more likely to be a local crime.'I have doubts because of the way it went down,' said Mr Kalugin. 'It does not fit well with the pattern of security services [in Russia] as I know them.'Local police would not comment. But a law-enforcement official said Mr Joyal, who remains in a critical condition, appeared to have been the victim of a robbery. The official said he was shot after resisting two men who had robbed him.The case has raised interest partly because Daniel McGrory, a reporter with The Times who appeared on the same NBC programme as Mr Joyal, died five days before the broadcast. There has been no official an-nouncement about the cause of death but he is believed to have died from a stroke.Alex Goldfarb, a friend of Mr Litvinenko and acquaintance of Mr Joyal, was also sceptical about Russian government involvement but he too would not rule it out.'It looks like a regular street mugging,' he said. 'But in Soviet times, when they wanted to organise a hit on someone they would hire someone local.'Mr Goldfarb, who met Mr Joyal several weeks ago, said Mr Joyal was pushing for Senate hearings on the Litvinenko affair and was hoping Mr Goldfarb would testify. He said he had received a text message from Mr Joyal before the shooting saying he was discussing the possibility of congressional hearings with Mr Kalugin.Mr Joyal, an employee of National Strategies, told NBC's Dateline in a programme broadcast last month, that the Litvinenko killing was intended to send a message. 'A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin. 'If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you and we will silence you in the most horrible way possible',' Mr Joyal said.The Kremlin has strongly denied any suggestions that it was involved in the poisoning of Litvinenko, a fierce critic of the Russian regime. British police are investigating his death.NBC has provided bodyguards for reporters who worked on the programme about the Litvinenko case.

Link

I'm surprised that this piece of information (the death of McGrory) has slipped by. I wonder what the relationship to The Times is?

[Emp edit: Fixing big link]

Posted: 07-03-2007 14:42 Post subject: Re: Litvinenko supporter shot in US

Posted: 22-05-2007 14:33 Post subject:

Russian faces Litvinenko charge

A Russian former KGB officer should be charged with the murder by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the UK's director of public prosecutions has recommended.
Sir Ken Macdonald said Andrei Lugovoi, who has denied any involvement, should face trial for the "grave crime".

Mr Litvinenko, 43, an ex-FSB agent and a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died in London last November.

But a spokesman for the Kremlin said Russia's constitution did not allow its nationals to be extradited.

'Awaiting action'

A spokesman added it was waiting for the "British side to actually do something rather than make statements".

The Russian general prosecution service also said there was "no way" Mr Lugovoi could be extradited because of constitutional constraints.

But the service's spokesman added that a Russian citizen who had committed a crime in another country "should be prosecuted in Russia with evidence provided by the foreign state".

Earlier UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she had told the Russian ambassador that she expected "full co-operation" with regards extraditing Mr Lugovoi.

The decision to prosecute was arrived at by the Crown Prosecution Service after consultation with Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, who advises the government on legal issues.

'Public interest'

Mr Litvinenko, who was granted political asylum in the UK in 2000 after leaving Russia and went on to take British citizenship, died at University College Hospital on 23 November.

He had been exposed to the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Sir Ken told a news conference: "I have today concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoi with the murder of Mr Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning.

"I have further concluded that a prosecution of this case would clearly be in the public interest.

"In those circumstances, I have instructed CPS lawyers to take immediate steps to seek the early extradition of Andrei Lugovoi from Russia to the United Kingdom, so that he may be charged with murder - and be brought swiftly before a court in London to be prosecuted for this extraordinarily grave crime."

International investigation

Mr Litvinenko's widow Marina said that she welcomed the decision on what was a "big day" for her.

She said: "I am now very anxious to see that justice is really done and that Mr Lugovoi is extradited and brought to trial in a UK court."

She added that any court case should be held in Britain, and that she believed more than one person was responsible for her husband's death.

The counter-terrorism command of the Metropolitan Police has been conducting a detailed international investigation into Mr Litvinenko's death. The police inquiry, during which officers followed a trail of polonium radioactivity at a series of locations visited by Mr Litvinenko in London before he died, eventually took them to Moscow.

His friends, including London-based Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, have accused the Kremlin of ordering his assassination but the Russian government has rejected such claims.

Police passed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service in January.

Diplomatic relations between Russia and the UK have been strained by the case and BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said it was hard to see how Mr Lugovoi could be extradited given Moscow's attitude.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary had met with the Russian ambassador to "underline that they should comply with the extradition request".

He added the government has "left nobody in any doubt at all as to the seriousness with which we view this case".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6678887.stm

Posted: 26-05-2007 16:15 Post subject: Did This Man Kill Litvinenko?

Posted: 03-06-2007 13:08 Post subject: Litvinenko Wife Rejects MI6 Claim

Posted: 15-06-2007 13:20 Post subject:

Posted: 09-07-2007 22:24 Post subject:

Moscow says it has MI6 spy

RUSSIAN officials announced yesterday that a criminal investigation had been opened into allegations by a former tax police officer that he was recruited as an informant by MI6 with the help of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent who died of polonium poisoning in London last year.

Vyacheslav Zharko is said to have turned himself in to the FSB, the successor to the KGB, 10 days ago and confessed to having worked for British intelligence since 2002. He claims that he was introduced to MI6 officers by Litvinenko during a trip to London in that year.

Zharko said he met his British handlers regularly in Turkey, Finland and Cyprus and supplied them with analytical reports on Russia's economy and politics. In return, he claims, he was paid about 60,000. He estimates that MI6 spent an additional 150,000 on expenses. 'I needed money so when Litvinenko told me that I could earn easy cash by collaborating with British intelligence I agreed,' Zharko, 36, told The Sunday Times in his first interview with a western newspaper. 'I saw myself as a consultant. I began to worry after Litvinenko's death because I feared I'd be sucked into something too dangerous. That's when I turned myself in.' The FSB, which has investigated Zharko, backs his claims but will not prosecute him for espionage, saying that he did not reveal any state secrets and had come forward voluntarily. His testimony comes a month after Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer named by the Crown Prosecution Service as the prime suspect in the death of Litvinenko, accused MI6 of trying to recruit him.

Russia has refused to extradite Lugovoi, who met Litvinenko on the day he was poisoned, to face trial in Britain and the Kremlin has angrily rejected accusations that it was behind the murder. Like Zharko, Lugovoi, who has protested his innocence, claims British intelligence sought to recruit him with Litvinenko's help.

The fallout over Litvinenko's death, which also left dozens of people contaminated with polonium 210, together with the subsequent row over Lugovoi, has plunged relations between Britain and Russia to their lowest point since the end of the cold war.

The dispute has also provoked a propaganda battle between MI6 and the FSB, two former foes that, officially at least, are partners in the fight on terrorism. British investigators are believed to suspect that Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who fled to Britain and was granted asylum, and who became a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was killed by his former employer.

The FSB rejects the claim and is now hitting back, using Zharko's testimony to highlight allegations of secret MI6 operations in Russia. 'For months we've been accused of killing Litvinenko,' said an FSB source. 'The Brits have been waging an information war against us and now we are responding in kind. We have gone public with Zharko's story because it proves that Britain is actively spying against Russia and that Litvinenko was in cahoots with MI6.' Zharko claimed he had first met Litvinenko through Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian tycoon and opponent of Putin.

Berezovsky has been granted asylum in Britain. A former tax police officer in St Petersburg, Zharko had turned to Berezovsky for help in 2000 when an investigation he had led into a rival tycoon was threatened for political reasons. According to Zharko, Berezovsky who at the time had fallen out with the tycoon under investigation used his influence to keep the investigation open.

In 2002 Zharko left the tax police but stayed in touch with Berezovsky who by then had fled to Britain after falling out with Putin. It was during a trip to London five years ago that the billionaire, who according to Zharko knew him under the false name of Vladislav Petrov, put him in touch with Litvinenko. In turn, Litvinenko introduced Zharko to several British 'friends', who claimed to be business consultants but who later revealed themselves as MI6 officers and told him they were interested in recruiting him as an informant. 'They agreed to pay me 2,000 [1,355] a month,' Zharko said. 'I was told I shouldn't travel to London any more because Berezovsky's entourage was closely watched by Russian intelligence. I was supplied with a mobile phone I was to use to make contact with them, but only outside Russia. 'Litvinenko led them to believe that I'd worked in Russian intelligence so they thought I was a good catch.' According to Zharko, during his years of secret work for MI6 he had several meetings in the West with a total of four undercover British handlers. He talked fondly about one of the MI6 agents. 'We spent many nights drinking together and he once told me how he had photographed some secret documents in the toilets of a Moscow restaurant,' he said. Zharko said that at first his British handlers had been interested in information on several Russian companies. Then they asked him to compile a series of analytical reports on the political situation in Ukraine in the run-up to the country's Orange revolution and were also interested in information on any FSB operations against western non-governmental organisations working in Russia.

Zharko claims he supplied his case officers with information he compiled only from open sources. His final meeting with his handlers took place last November in Istanbul, a few days after Litvinenko's death, he said. He last spoke to them on the phone in June.

It is not the first time the FSB has publicly claimed to have exposed an MI6 operation. Last year it leaked footage of four diplomats posted at the embassy, allegedly downloading secret data from a transmitter concealed in a fake rock left in a Moscow park.

Relations between the two countries have been steadily worsening since. For months members of a pro-Kremlin youth group harassed Sir Anthony Brenton, the British ambassador in Moscow, after he attended an opposition gathering. Last week Brenton issued an angry public denial after a Russian paper claimed that asylum could be bought in Britain. 'We are in the middle of an information battle,' said a British diplomat who was based in Moscow. 'Relations were hard enough before the Litvinenko case. They've since taken a sharp turn for the worst. Expect more salvos to be fired.'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2042351.ece

Sun Jul 15, 2007 12:19PM BST

Posted: 16-07-2007 22:43 Post subject:

Britain expels Russian diplomats over Litvinenko

Russia warned Britain tonight its decision to expel four Russian diplomats over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko would have "the most serious consequences".

The Cold War-style expulsions - the first in a decade - were announced in an emergency Commons statement this afternoon by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary.

Mr Miliband also told MPs that the Government had suspended negotiations on simplified visa rules and was reviewing bilateral cooperation on a range of other issues because of Moscow's "extremely disappointing" decision not to extradite the chief suspect, former KGB officer Andrei Lugovoy.

"This is a situation the Government has not sought and does not welcome. But we have no choice but to address it," Mr Miliband said."We have chosen to expel four particular diplomats in order to send a clear and proportionate signal about the seriousness of this case."

The initial Russian reaction stopped short of tit-for-tat expulsions - but they may not be long coming. At an impromptu briefing in Moscow, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, called Britain's decision "immoral".

"They should understand well in London that the provocative actions conceived by the British authorities will not go unanswered and cannot fail to produce the most serious consequences for Russian-British relations as a whole," he added.

British prosecutors allege that Mr Lugovoy, a Moscow businessmen, fed Litvinenko polonium-210, a poisonous radioactive isotope, in a pot of tea in a Mayfair hotel on November 1 last year.

Traces of the substance were found at around a dozen other sites in London, including three hotels, a stadium, two planes and an office building

Mr Litvinenko, also a former KGB officer who had become a fierce critic of the Kremlin over its campaigns in Chechnya, died on November 23 after a dramatic deathbed statement in which he accused President Vladimir Putin of being behind his killing. He had become a British citizen shortly before he was poisoned.

The Crown Prosecution Service announced its decision to seek Mr Lugovoy's extradition on May 22, but the request was formally turned down by Russia a week ago.

Mr Miliband said: "The Russian Government has failed to register either how seriously we treat this case or the seriousness of the issues involved, despite lobbying at the highest level and clear explanations of our need for a satisfactory response."

Not only had Mr Litvinenko suffered a "horrifying and lingering death in front of his family", he said, but hundreds of others had been put at risk of radiation as well.

"Given the importance of the issue and Russia’s failure to cooperate to find a solution, we need an appropriate response," he told MPs.

The expulsions marked the depth of British concern at the Litvinenko murder. It is not clear what other cards Mr Miliband has left to play if only because the economic deck appears stacked firmly in Russia’s favour.

Foreign investment is flooding into Russia and is forecast to be $70 billion this year, compared to $42 billion in 2006 with British companies at the forefront. The strength of British investment is in spite of the uncomfortable experiences of Shell and BP in being forced by the Kremlin to cede control of key oil and gas projects to state-owned Gazprom.

British firms invested $5.5 billion in Russia last year, making it the largest foreign investor. Russia received $3.1 billion in direct British investment in the first three months of this year alone, almost nine times more than the $364 million invested by US companies.

According to the British Embassy in Moscow, the visa review will affect officials and not ordinary Russians. The embassy now issues 700 visas per day to Russians seeking to visit Britain, up 25 per cent on this time last year.

Russian companies have made the London Stock Exchange their chosen home for stock flotations. They raised $30 billion in initial public offerings (IPO) last year and floats worth at least $40 billion are expected to be concluded in 2007.

The $8 billion flotation of VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank, in London in May was the largest global IPO so far this year. London has handled all six international IPOs by Russian companies so far this year, worth $12.2 billion.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2085879.ece