Police match image of Litvinenko's real assassin with his death-bed description

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2556377,00.html

Daniel McGrory and Tony Halpin




The polonium trail
Police have identified the man they believe poisoned Alexander Litvinenko. The suspected killer was captured on cameras at Heathrow as he flew into Britain to carry out the murder.



Friends of the ex-spy say that the man was a hired killer, sent by the Kremlin, who vanished hours after administering a deadly dose of radioactive polonium-210 to Litvinenko.

He arrived in London on a forged EU passport and reportedly slipped the poison into a cup of tea he made for Litvinenko in a London hotel room. Litvinenko was reportedly able to give vital details of his suspected killer in a bedside interview with detectives just days before he died on November 23 at University College Hospital.

Police have decided not to publish pictures of this man, who was seen on CCTV cameras as he flew in from Hamburg on November 1, the day that Litvinenko fell ill.

He is described as being tall and powerfully built, in his early thirties with short, cropped black hair and distinctive Central Asian features.

He reportedly travelled on the same flight as Dimitri Kovtun, a Russian businessman who is being investigated for trafficking the radioactive material used in the poison plot.

[Eugene]

1. That is an interesting lead as far as it goes

but, since Litvinenko may have been poisoned twice, investigators still have
to explain what happened during the apparent hit at the sushi bar and then
fit all the pieces together.

Earlier story: Police believe Litvinenko poisoned twice - Sunday Telegraph (Jan. 8)

[Ediacara]

2. I thought they arrested his buddy for Polonium trafficking

a few weeks ago.... I was under the impression that this seemed to be fading away as an accidental poisoning.

[Amused Musings]

3. While I have no doubt that the Kremlin was somehow

behind the world's first dirty bomb assassination, the audacity and the weapon used still disturbs me and seems too brazen an act. I suppose that the murder may have been carried out so as a vivid and horrifying message to other enemies of the Kremlin: Back off, you are not even safe in the West.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Litvinenko, "The Family" and 9/11

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x130666