Movie Material
The life of Alexander Litvinenko might well have been sensational. But his DEATH certainly was.
A former Russian spy who was mysteriously poisoned has attacked President Vladmir Putin in a statement made on his deathbed.
Putin SAYS there there was no proof it was a “violent death,” though the potential PRESENCE of “a large quantity of radiation, probably from a substance called Polonium 210″ would certainly suggest otherwise. I’m pretty sure that’s not the kind of thing you can ingest accidentally. It’s not the sort of substance usually found lying around the kitchen.
And THIS doesn’t make the death any more likely to have been “accidental,” though it seems that there are any number of non-Putin suspects.
Mr Litvinenko had recently been investigating the murder of his friend, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of the Putin government.
Russian dissident Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB colonel and friend of Mr Litvinenko, maintained that the poisoning had been the work of the Russians.
The Russian security service had “sent a man with a poisonous pill to Britain”, put a pill into Mr Litvinenko’s tea and killed him, he told BBC News.
Intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear Harvey said Mr Litvinenko had “made a lot of enemies” when he had been tasked with fighting corruption during his time with the Federal Security Service (FSB) - the KGB’s successor.
Mr Harvey also said the poisoning could have been carried out by the “Russian mafia”, made up of former-KGB men who had formed the group when the service broke up.
“So I think that while one could say they were trained by the KGB this is not in any way a Russian intelligence service hit,” he told BBC News.
HERE is Mr. Litvinenko’s statement in its entirety:
I would like to thank many people. My doctors, nurses and hospital staff who are doing all they can for me; the British police who are pursuing my case with vigor and professionalism and are watching over me and my family. I would like to thank the British government for taking me under their care. I am honored to be a British citizen.
I would like to thank the British public for their messages of support and for the interest they have shown in my plight.
I thank my wife, Marina, who has stood by me. My love for her and our son knows no bounds.
But as I lie here, I can distinctly hear the beating of wings of the angel of death. I may be able to give him the slip but I have to say my legs do not run as fast as I would like. I think, therefore, that this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition.
You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed.
You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value.
You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilized men and women.
You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.
What a strange situation. Once again, truth is stranger than fiction - often a great deal stranger.
