Alexander Litvinenko

[Guest Gary Loughran]

Breaking news on BBC

The ex-KGB agent wanted over Alexander Litvinenko's murder, Andrei Lugovoi, has said the British secret service tried to recruit him.

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow, Mr Lugovoi said Mr Litvinenko was not his enemy and that he had been made a scapegoat in the case.

Last week, the UK requested the extradition of Mr Lugovoi, who denies the charges, to be tried for the crime.

The Kremlin says Russia's constitution does not allow it to hand him over.

Former KGB officer Mr Litvinenko died in London in 2006 after exposure to the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Add to this the quid pro quo deal Berezovsky for Lugovoi which seemed to be mooted last night.

[Michael Chapman]

Breaking news on BBC

The ex-KGB agent wanted over Alexander Litvinenko's murder, Andrei Lugovoi, has said the British secret service tried to recruit him.

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow, Mr Lugovoi said Mr Litvinenko was not his enemy and that he had been made a scapegoat in the case.

Last week, the UK requested the extradition of Mr Lugovoi, who denies the charges, to be tried for the crime.

The Kremlin says Russia's constitution does not allow it to hand him over.

Former KGB officer Mr Litvinenko died in London in 2006 after exposure to the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Add to this the quid pro quo deal Berezovsky for Lugovoi which seemed to be mooted last night.

Looks like Andrei Lugovoi is trying to steal my thunder. Serves me right I suppose for showing off. I'd better get my skates on if I don't want to be out scooped by the Ruskie spook. So I'll be right back explaining who did what to whom after some brief messages from our sponsors.

Keep your zappers in your pants!

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Breaking news on BBC

The ex-KGB agent wanted over Alexander Litvinenko's murder, Andrei Lugovoi, has said the British secret service tried to recruit him.

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow, Mr Lugovoi said Mr Litvinenko was not his enemy and that he had been made a scapegoat in the case.

Last week, the UK requested the extradition of Mr Lugovoi, who denies the charges, to be tried for the crime.

The Kremlin says Russia's constitution does not allow it to hand him over.

Former KGB officer Mr Litvinenko died in London in 2006 after exposure to the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Add to this the quid pro quo deal Berezovsky for Lugovoi which seemed to be mooted last night.

Looks like Andrei Lugovoi is trying to steal my thunder. Serves me right I suppose for showing off. I'd better get my skates on if I don't want to be out scooped by the Ruskie spook. So I'll be right back explaining who did what to whom after some brief messages from our sponsors.

Keep your zappers in your pants!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are obviously in the presence of genius, or a 17 year old xxxxx with a wery wery bad case of acne, and no Girlfriend. Perhaps your next post will reveal which. Place your money.

[Michael Chapman]

The Piccadilly Polonium Plot - The Prologue

Sorry chaps but I just love to alliterate, so you'll just have to grin and bear it. I also love Columbo and Derren Brown (the self styled 'mentalist' entertainer). So, I'm going to try and find out who really killed Sasha Litvinenko by playing my favourite game - Columbo. That means I am not going to be a jejune, half witted, projecting, chip on both shoulders, liberal/lefty clown (did I miss anything?).

Derren, of course, is formidable opposition. I have democratically elected to give his part to the UK media and any number of professional pundits, secret service 'experts' and very deep and dark disinformationalists (aka 'scholars'). Through a mixture of 'magic, misdirection and showmanship' they will attempt to throw you off the scent (watch out particularly for the misdirection bit: Derren's 'explanations' are his best tricks!).

I really should be charging for this...

[John Geraghty]

Breaking news on BBC

The ex-KGB agent wanted over Alexander Litvinenko's murder, Andrei Lugovoi, has said the British secret service tried to recruit him.

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow, Mr Lugovoi said Mr Litvinenko was not his enemy and that he had been made a scapegoat in the case.

Last week, the UK requested the extradition of Mr Lugovoi, who denies the charges, to be tried for the crime.

The Kremlin says Russia's constitution does not allow it to hand him over.

Former KGB officer Mr Litvinenko died in London in 2006 after exposure to the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Add to this the quid pro quo deal Berezovsky for Lugovoi which seemed to be mooted last night.

Looks like Andrei Lugovoi is trying to steal my thunder. Serves me right I suppose for showing off. I'd better get my skates on if I don't want to be out scooped by the Ruskie spook. So I'll be right back explaining who did what to whom after some brief messages from our sponsors.

Keep your zappers in your pants!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are obviously in the presence of genius, or a 17 year old xxxxx with a wery wery bad case of acne, and no Girlfriend. Perhaps your next post will reveal which. Place your money.

I think there might be a more likely third option Stephen...

[Michael Chapman]

The Piccadilly Polonium Plot

Chapter One - Miso Soup

On the very day that this story broke I resolved to stay with it till the bitter end. But some narratives don't just end: they peter out and flare up and peter out again like charred logs in the grate. It was like that with flight BA 149 and so it is in the mysterious Litvinenko case. But the flare ups here are not confined to the grate - they're consuming the whole cottage.

Just to remind you this story was broken to the world (except Russia) in the first edition of the Daily Mail dated Saturday November 18th (the 'quality' press followed up in their later editions). There was, at that time, virtual unanimity amongst the press about what had happened: that a former FSB agent turned defector, Alexander Litvinenko, had been poisoned with THALIUM after lunching with an Italian academic, Mario Scaramella, at the Itsu Sushi Bar in Piccadilly on Wednesday 1st November and that he had been admitted to his local hospital, Barnet General, the same evening.

The eagle eyed and contrarians amongst you are already restless, your itchy trigger fingers poised over left click on your mice: 'that's not what happened at all...' For the moment all I'll say to that charge is that none of us can be sure about what actually happened (why else would we be debaing this here?) but we can be sure about what was REPORTED as having happened.

More crucially, we can also be sure that key facts and events in the earliest reporting were either revised or airbrushed out of ALL later accounts. In the most recent rounds of this cold war Cluedo it is no longer Mario Scaramella (with the Thalium in the Sushi Bar) who is the main suspect but Andrei Lugovoi (with the Polonium in the Pine Bar). And you know what?

Virtually nobody seems to have fookin' noticed this change. Virtually nobody notices because virtually nobody cares about facts. You see, the only people who care about facts are trainspotters and consulting actuaries whose brains are hardwired to exclude ideas - unlike post modernists whose brains are hard wired to ignore facts. Post modernists can hypothesise till the cows come home without any supporting evidence at all.

Which is why, figuratively speaking, 'Derren Brown' has been able to run rings around them in the Litvinenko affair....

[Michael Chapman]

PPP

Chapter Two - Prussian Blue

The Litvinenko affair, which out Le Carre'd John Le Carre, was a gift to the Sunday's on the weekend that the story broke. Column yards were devoted to Scaramella, the mysterious Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Naples, the menu at the Itsu Sushi Bar and, of course, to Thalium, the deadly rare metal that had laid the defector spook low.

During such national emergencies it is customary for the media to wheel out a recognised expert to speak with calm authority. So John Henry (remember the name), Emeritus Professor of Toxicology, (Imperial College & St Mary's Hospital Paddington) was rolled into the limelight. He declared that a 'sample' (its nature was unspecified) from Litvinenko had tested positive for Thalium Sulphate contamination on Thursday 16th November. In the light of this information Litvinenko's transfer from Barnet General to University College Hospital the very next day appeared timely and necessary.

Although the hacks were muttering 'Sushi' and 'Thalium' in the same breath they weren't as yet pointing an accusing finger at the Neapolitan professor. He had apparently flown in to warn his friend Litvinenko that he was on the FSB hit list that he flourished excitedly during their lunch. Scaramella's name was on it too. Apparently both of them had angered the Kremlin by stating publicly that a branch of Russian intelligence was responsible for the murder of dissident journalist Anna Politovskaya.

Like many, I suppose, I was wondering exactly what conclusions I was supposed to draw from all this. The inference appeard to me that Scaramella had surreptitiously and treacherously poisoned his 'friend.' But at the same time, our would be inferred assassin (who was also bizarrely on the very same hit list as his 'friend' and would be victim) also supplied a clear motive for the attack. Who was feeding this paradoxical information to the media?

But in this puzzling saga at least Thalium appeared to be the universal constant. There could be no denying that it was a deadly substance. And, as I was to find out as I Googled and Wiki'ed away 'Thalium' 'Thalium Sulphate' & 'Radioactive Thalium', the operative word in the clause 'was a deadly substance' was WAS. It seems that the boffins had finally come up with an antidote (or 'chelator' in boffin speak) for all these variants of the metal: Radiogardese (FDA approved 2003).

This drug, which is now available on prescription, is a refined derivative of a cruder compound that was also used to treat Thalium poisoning in the past. The specific detoxifying effect of that substance was recognized as far back as 30 years ago. However the substance itself, used in the manufacture of paint dye, has been around since the early 18th century.

It is called Prussian Blue.

[Guest Gary Loughran]

Hi Michael, When do the fireworks start?

[Guest David Guyatt]

I wonder if anyone has considered more deeply the possible twist/motive behind all this?

I am referring to Berezovsky, Abromovich, Khodorovsky and their oil and gas empires, especially Yukos oil that was grabbed by Putin from under the noses of western oil companies. In this regard there was another mysterious death, that of Stephen Curtis, the Managing Director of Menatep who died in a helicopter crash near Bournemouth airport back in 2003.

A German colleague followed this line of investigation and learned of some very interesting connections. This concerned the involvement of Curtis (with Peter Bond) in a Russian money laundering scheme back in 1999 that involved an offshore "three letter" company called TMC that had stashed $20 million in offshore accounts on the Isle of Man. This was all part of the Bank of New York affair where it has been claimed that vast sums (billions) in grants and aid by IMF and/or the USA to Russia wound up back in the USA under "different ownership". I recall opinions presented that US indivuals complicit in this arrangement may have reached high up in the then US Administration.

Curiously, there is another TMC, this one of Cleveland, Ohio (note: a very common intelligence ploy is to set up two companies in different jurisdictions with the same/similar name) that has some very, very interesting connections to a German lawyer named Langenstuck. The German and Israeli connections to this affair are also most significant.

It is when one follows the connections of Langenstuck that I get on familiar ground -- WWII black gold. Most notably Langenstuck worked with a gentleman by the name of Gerd Koppenhofer, who was listed as the last director of a previously "dissolved" (as of September 1987) Isle of Man registered company called Bengal Trading Limited (or the three letter "BTL"). NINE years later, Bengal is resurrected from the dead by an "alleged creditor".

Does it smell suspicious? I think so. The original Bengal Trading was used to launder plundered gold by President Marcos of the Philippines.

The entire thing becomes really very, very complex indeed and I suspect that the Litvinenko affair is merely a continuation of a financial war that has been raging for decades.

One might even imagine that the myserious deaths of bankers Edmond Safra in Monte Carlo in December 1999 and Amschel Rothschild in Paris in July 1996 are all part of this same tapestry.

David

[Michael Chapman]

PPP

Chapter Three - The BBC

The discrepancies in the reporting of Litvinenko's poisoning didn't start with the BBC (as you shall see below) but the Corporation's performance on Sunday 19th November was, by any measure, quite extraordinary (looking back that is of course: at the time even a sleuth as seasoned as Columbo wouldn't have felt more than a little non-plussed).

The Sunday Times of the 19th November peered through the fog of the circulation war and defintely saw a female 'contact' with Litvinenko at the Itsu Sushi Bar (The Times repeated this assertion the following day). The Mail on Sunday demoted Scaramella from Professor of Environmental Law to a member of the 'underworld' and also claimed that the document that this crook waved at Litvinenko (while the latter was either drinking his soup or eating his fish) was not an FSB 'hit list' (that contained the names of both men according to other press reports), but a register of FSB officers that had participated in the murder of dissident journalist, Anna Politovskaya.

By comparison, The Mail On Sunday's other revelation that Litvinenko was not admitted to Barnet General Hospital until 48 hours after his encounter with Scaramella at Itsu's, seems trivial. However, it was the snagging of this seemingly innocuous loose thread on our gumshoe's cuff button that led to the unravelling of the whole fabric of the Litvinenko plot.

But let's get back to the Beeb. The main thing that strikes you now when you review the BBC's web output for Sunday 19th November was how much ahead of the game they appeared to be. And, only slightly less worthy of comment, is how much they appeared to be holding back. Trawling through the BBC web archive of the day Columbo gets the old familiar feeling of the managed news story.

Andrei Lugovoy, Litvinenko's old FSB buddy (and now deemed the chief suspect in his demise) had yet to debut in this sordid tale when this sensational claim by Oleg Gordievsky (another Russian secret service defector and 'friend' of Litvinenko) appeared on the BBC website on the 19th November:

He told the BBC he believed Mr Litvinenko was poisoned when he drank a cup of tea at the flat of an old Russian friend - before the lunchtime meeting at the sushi restaurant.

The only tension in this assertion with the current 'official' version of Litvinenko's poisoning is the reported location ('flat' as opposed to 'hotel). But that's only the beginning: look at this quote from a doctor who treated Litvinenko:

Dr Andres Virchis, a doctor from Barnet Hospital who earlier treated Mr Litvinenko, said his bone marrow had failed and he was not producing any normal immune cells.

That was "presumably as the effect of the thallium or even potentially some other unknown substances that we're not aware of", he said.

Virchis's inference that the thallium diagnosis might be uncertain seemed to surprise Professor John Henry (remember the name!) the eminent toxicologist who was, according to most accounts, treating Litvinenko at University College Hospital. When quizzed by the news anchor on BBC News 24 on this point Henry stated not only that the presence of thallium had been CONFIRMED in Litvinenko's blood stream but that it was the ONLY agent responsible for his condition. Professor Henry also gave an eyebrow raising respone when asked how much pain his patient was in: 'He's in a certain amount of pain but it's not massive...' (remember this detail too).

Tucked away deep inside the web screed was yet another revelation just waiting to be missed by any mole eyed researcher: the BBC had actually interviewed Litvinenko some days earlier (talk about keeping your light under a bushel)! The only comment he made during that meeting that was reported is paraphrased thus on the BBC website:

Speaking to the BBC last week, he said a contact had approached him to say they should talk, and they arranged to meet at a restaurant in Piccadilly.

"He gave me some papers which contained some names - perhaps names of those who may have been involved in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya - and several hours after the meeting I started to feel sick."

More accurately, the above text is a transcription of an interpreter's voice over of Litvinenko's remarks. Litvinenko actually spoke in Russian (a scratchy clip of this interivew is used in a report filed by Dominic Hughes). Why had the BBC waited 'some days' to broadcast what would have been a 'sensational' scoop?

But there was something even more baffling in the same BBC report. A suggestion that the hiatus between Litvinenko's Itsu lunch and his eventual admission to Barnet General Hospital (on a stretcher) was more elastic than the '48 hours' The Mail On Sunday would have us believe:

'Two weeks later Mr Litvinenko was taken seriously ill and admitted to hospital. '

Is this what Litvinenko said on tape and is this why the BBC did not air it?

(This post did not register @5.50 PM on June 4)

Edited June 5, 2007 by Michael Chapman

[Michael Chapman]

PPP

Chapter Four - Gordievsky's Lore

The hounds at the front of the press pack following the Litvinenko scent on Sunday 19th November were the BBC, The Mail on Sunday (whose sister title The Daily Mail 'scooped' the story before, although its online archive for the 18th links to its coverage of the 21st November) and The Sunday Times.

The Mail on Sunday claimed that various websites had fingered Litvinenko's contact at the Itsu Sushi Bar, Mario Scaramella, as a KGB spy. It also reported that Litvinenko's wife had been unhappy with the standard of her husband's medical treatment:

Marina Litvinenko, 44, said she had repeatedly claimed that her husband Alexander had been deliberately targeted after a clandestine meeting with an underworld contact but that medical staff had ignored the claim, allowing his condition to worsen.

A friend said: "She suspected from an early stage that her husband had been poisoned but the hospital staff weren't taking her seriously.

"Had they tested for poison earlier, then maybe they could have done something to prevent him getting worse.

Marina Litvinenko's account, unlike the BBC's, suggests that Litvinenko was hospitalized soon after being taken ill.

The Sunday Times divulged the content of medical documents that it claimed to have examined. These papers stated that a toxicology test performed at Guys Hospital on Thursday the 16th November confirmed that Litvinenko had been poisoned with thallium. It would appear that the first casualty of 'cold war' is patient confidentiality.

The Sunday Times, it seems, didn't want to be out done by the BBC:

In an interview last week at his bedside in the cancer ward of Barnet hospital, where he was being treated under a different name, Litvinenko said he believed it was a murder plot to avenge his defection.

Not only do we have a new motive for the attack but we also have this (questionable)desire for patient anonymity.

Again, like the BBC, The Sunday Times interviewed celebrity defector, Oleg Gordievsky only their interview appeared to be more wide ranging. But rather than throwing more light on the circumstances surrounding Litvinenko's poisoning their discussion only seemed to spin a mist around them.

The allegations reported previously in the BBC account are fleshed out and altered in some respects. Litvinenko was poisoned with tea by a former friend in a hotel (on Putin's orders apparently because of Litvinenko's constant taunts and insults in unspecified publications - murder motive number 3) just before he met Scaramella (a respectable man who is now in fear of his life according to Oleg). The incident apparently is too distressing for his wife to talk about (except to The Mail on Sunday it seems).

What is most interesting though about this interview is Gordievsky's 'pathology' of the mundane events leading up to Litvinenko's hospitalisation (very little of which is corroborated elsewhere). He claims that 'his friend' began to feel ill before his meeting with Scaramella (in the afternoon). But later on in the conversation he appears to change his mind:

According to Mr Gordievsky, Mr Litvinenko began to feel ill that evening. His wife called an ambulance. The crew thought that he had food poisoning and give him pills.

Strange that paramedics would think themselves competent to diagnose one of the 200 or so diseases transmissable through food and that they had the appropriate remedy to hand. Was it at this stage, I wonder, that the Litvinenko's gave (and signed) a 'different' name on the incident sheet?

But his condition deteriorated so the next morning they called an ambulance again. “It was only on the tenth day in hospital that the doctors realised it was not food poisoning..."

Are we supposed to surmise from this that he was admitted to Barnet General on November 2nd (as opposed to 1st, 3rd, 4th or sometime around the middle of November as reported elswhere)? Was a false name given at A&E? Didn't A&E find out who Litvinenko's GP was?

Wouldn't a 'different name' create problems for sourcing medical records? Wouldn't Barnet and General A&E have been told about foreigners trying to get free treatment on the NHS - or is the B&G Trust very relaxed about such matters? And wouldn't a 'different name' cover story make Litvinenko's admission impossible to challenge? Questions, so many questions...

When queried about the length of time it appeared to take for the police to get involved, Gordievsky had more interesting rationalisations:

Why did it take so long to report the poisoning to the police? “Because British doctors are not familiar with such poisons.

Well, your average GP PROBABLY wouldn't have direct experience of thallium intoxication, granted, but would almost certainly be aware of its symptoms and effects and would refer a possible sufferer to a specialist in this area commonly called a TOXICOLOGIST (another unfortunate inference waiting to be drawn here is that this kind of intoxication was just another existential hazard that Soviet citizens had to put up with). Gordievsky continues:

He went to the doctor...

(What? I thought he was in hospital.)

He went to the doctor, who gave him antibiotics. His wife and son kept telling the doctor that he had been poisoned, but the doctor said it was just a reaction to the antibiotics...

The issue of the date of Litvinenko's admission to Barnet General has never been resolved. This, and the claim that he used a different name for at least part of his stay there, throws into doubt various accounts of his treatment. But the ramifications don't end there.

ONE IS FORCED TO ASK WHETHER LITVINENKO WAS EVER ADMITTED TO BARNET GENERAL HOSPITAL AT ALL

Edited June 9, 2007 by Michael Chapman

[Sid Walker]

Much of this article is not easy for me to check.

It refers to newspaper reports not easily available here. In part, that's why it's so useful (assuming Michael has done his homework and cited them accurately).

Anyhow, as a general comment, so far I've found this presentation on the Litvinenko murder quite fascinating.

It seems to me exactly the type of analysis needed in cases of terrorism and other forms of foul play given prominence by the mass media: critical examination of the media coverage, exposing discrepancies in reports and pointing out the way 'spin' changes over time.

It's like using the records of mass media reportage to reverse-engineer the truth.

Annoying to have to do this. Naively, I used to think it was the job of the media itself to tell the truth.

But there's not much alternative as long as the western mass media remains so dishonest and discredited.

Edited June 11, 2007 by Sid Walker

[Michael Chapman]

PPP

Chapter Five - A Brief Life

Monday 20th November brought us the first (and only) photographs (just two) of the thallium stricken, hospitalised Litvinenko, a name for the mysterious 'old friend' who had poisoned his tea (Andrei Lugovoy) and, of course, a raft of motives.

At the moment there are at least a dozen motives in circulation about why Litvinenko was murdered and most of them, unsurprisingly, seem to belong to the Kremlin. Those of you on this forum who mis-spent their youth reading Agatha Christie will appreciate that it is unwise to speculate about motives until the physical circumstances surrounding the victim's demise have been clearly established.

AND IN LITVINENKO'S CASE BEFORE WE CAN FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM WE FIRST HAVE TO ESTABLISH WHAT DID NOT HAPPEN TO HIM

In the (dis?)information blizzard whirling around Litvinenko, Professor John Henry (remember the name!) appeared a beacon of authority. This devout RC and kidney transplantee was Britain's celebrity toxicologist in residence who opined openly about the potential long term damage of cannabis and ecstasy on the nation's 'yoof'. He had been very publicly 'brought in' in the Yushchenko poisoning case (exactly what his role was was never clarified - a striking parallel with his involvement in the Litvinenko case) and had determined that the Ukrainian's soup du jour had been seasoned with dioxin.

There were two striking features of Henry's interview on Litvinenko to camera on BBC NEWS 24 (the Real Player download is on a BBCI page dated the 19th November) mentioned in Chapter 4. The first was his steadfast belief was that it was thallium and thallium alone that was responsible for Litvinenko's condition. The second was his equivocation on Litvinenko's prospects. Henry's (relative) optimism is reported in The Guardian on the 20th November:

Dr Henry estimates that Mr Litvinenko 's recovery process will take at least six months. "His main problem in the next two to four weeks when the acute illness is gone, will be his nervous system," he said. "He will have a lot of muscle weakness and will need major physiotherapy."

Seems like there's life threatening 'gravely ill' and non life threatening 'gravely ill.' But Henry's benign prognosis and his conviction that thallium was the agent used to lay his patient low would come under a sustained assault. So much so, in fact, that the Professor emeritus would have to revise his opinion that thallium was found in Litvinenko's bloodstream and, in so doing, call into question the postive test conducted at Guys Hospital on the 16th November and the accuracy of medical documents perused by journalists of that august journal, The Times

It was Dr Andres Virchis (cancer specialist and haematologist at Barnet, Enfield and University College Hospitals) who was first reported as having doubts about the sufficiency of the thallium diagnosis (see Chapter 3). From the 20th November onwards his 'misgivings' would be taken up and reworked in a way reminiscent of Rachmaninoff's 'Improvisation on a Theme by Paganinni' by at least three other UCH clinicians - none of them toxicologists.

Virchis has some clinical neck. After all, it appears that he at least collaborated in the misdiagnosis of Litvinenko. Here is his 'confession' as reported by ABC 7 NEWS

"As his condition deteriorated," said Dr. Andres Virchis, a hematologist, "it became clear to us that this was no longer just an episode of gastroenteritis or food poisoning, but that actually something serious had happened to Alexander."

The hallmark cliche's of the Litvineko saga are the various tenses of the verb 'deteriorate' and the noun 'deterioration.' Litvinenko's first spiral downwards in 'real time' after the story broke was reported by a UCH encamped hackette, Nicola Pearson, to BBC NEWS 24 on Sunday 19th November. She stated that Litvinenko had been moved to intensive care. This 'development' begs many questions.

Had Litvinenko been on a UCH public ward before this move? Why had he been moved from a Barnet General cancer ward (where else would you put a 'gastroenteritis' case?) to UCH where there did not appear to be either a specialist toxicology unit or RESIDENT toxicologist to treat him? And exactly how did Litvinenko's family manage to 'bring in' their own toxicologist in the shape of Professor Henry (did he bill them by the hour?) to a rigid, rule bound, NHS hospital?

In The Times of the 21st November a Dr Amit Nathwani (one of the 'team' treating Litvinenko at UCH) put a lot of muddy water between himself and Professor Henry:

"His symptoms are slightly odd for thallium poisoning and the levels of thallium we were able to detect are not the kind of levels you would see in toxicity."

The same article quotes Henry as considering 'radioactive thallium' as the agent used, an idea developed in the following day's Daily Telegraph

Prof Henry said he no longer believed thallium sulphate to be the most likely poison used. “It is very likely that he has had radiation poisoning because his white cell count has gone down to zero. Now we are beginning to think it may well be radioactive thallium. I have managed to see more of his details today. The thallium levels are lower than expected.

“The thallium [sulphate] is the least of it - the radioactivity seems more important. He may need a bone marrow transplant to get him better. Something other than thallium is involved. There are several possibilities as to what this something is.

“One is that he was given thallium plus a second cytotoxic {poisonous to cells] drug, the second is that he was given thallium plus a different radioactive compound, the third is that he was given radioactive thallium. At this stage radioactive thallium seems the most likely cause.”

But both The Times of the 21st November and a BBC website report of the 23rd November have Nathwani and the UCH Trust ranged against Henry, radioactive and non radioactive thallium and all...

"We cannot rule out the possibility that Mr Litvinenko's condition was caused by a radioactive material - including radioactive thallium - although not all of his signs and symptoms are consistent with radiation toxicity", the trust added.

Based on results we have received today and Mr Litvinenko's clinical features, thallium sulphate poisoning is an unlikely cause of his current condition.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the main purpose of these statements was to undermine Henry (because of his unwillingness to let go of the 'thallium theory' or because he refused to consider the later revised standard polonium 210 version of events?). It seems that all this was too much for the venerable Professor because on the 23rd November he withdrew from the case according to The Guardian:

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.... The professor said yesterday that he was withdrawing because he had had his "fingers burnt".

It is no exageration to say that the claims made in this extract were a slur on Professor Henry's professional reputation and the manner of his departure was extraordinary.

On May 8th 2007 Henry was to appear in an episode of the BBC 'Horizon' science documentary series entitled 'How to Commit the Perfect Murder.' Although he referred to Litvinenk he did not come up with any new facts or theories about his case. The shock came at the end as the credits were rolling when the continuity announcer interjected:

'We regret to inform you that since the making of this programme Professor John Henry has passed away.'

John Henry died at The Royal Free Hospital, London, on the very same day that the documentary was screened after complications set in after a successful operation to remove a diseased kidney. No flies on that NHS Trust's PR machine then...

Another final irony is that Professor John Henry's high profile involvement in the Litvinenko case was not included either in an obituary run on his University's website (Imperial College) nor on BBC Radio Five's acclaimed obit show 'Brief Lives.'

Edited June 10, 2007 by Michael Chapman

[Paul Rigby]

Chapter Five - A Brief Life

Terrific research - keep it coming. Particularly looking forward to the section(s) on overview and motives. (Or do we just conclude "Oil and Gas"?)

Paul

[Guest Gary Loughran]

Chapter Five - A Brief Life

Terrific research - keep it coming. Particularly looking forward to the section(s) on overview and motives. (Or do we just conclude "Oil and Gas"?)

Paul

Totally concur. The Thallium to Polonium swap has always bothered me, as did the belated pictures of an obviously dying man in hospital (though I couldn't and still can't understand their purpose or why I was so bothered).

I'll echo Paul and ask do you intend to tie up the loose ends for us.

Super work, I hope your Churchill rebuttals are of such high quality.