From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 11/27/2006 6:09 AM
Was spy murdered in Russian power fight?

POSTED: 6:15 a.m. EST, November 26, 2006

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Forget the obvious conclusion that the Kremlin slowly and painfully poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.

Consider instead that he died in a bitter domestic power struggle which also included the murder of campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya last month.

The theory may sound outlandish but it is shared by opponents of President Vladimir Putin living abroad and some of his supporters inside the country.

Litvinenko, an ex-KGB spy, died in London on Thursday night after a three-week agony as his hair fell out, his body wasted away and internal organs failed. Doctors found traces of polonium 210, a deadly radioactive substance, in his body.

"We hate Putin. The man is loathsome. But he is not stupid enough to have ordered the death of Litvinenko in such a slow and public way," an influential Russian emigre told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The people who carried out this killing planned it extremely well," he added. "They knew that Litvinenko would die slowly and painfully and that this would cause a big outcry. If Putin had wanted to kill Litvinenko, do you really believe he would do it like this?"

Pro-government media in Russia also rejected suggestions of Putin's involvement. "This chain of events plays right into the hands of those who would wish to compromise Russia in the world arena," wrote the mass-circulation daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.

These views contradicted a deathbed statement by Litvinenko himself. The dying spy directly accused Putin of ordering his death, predicting a "howl of protest from around the world" would ring in the Russian president's ears for the rest of his life.

"Sasha (Litvinenko) was violently anti-Putin," one emigre said. "We respect what he said but we don't believe he's right."
Putin discredited

Litvinenko's death marked the second time that Putin had been embarrassed by an opponent's killing just before a major international meeting.

Last month Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of Putin, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment block on the president's birthday. The murder overshadowed Putin's German visit days later.

Litvinenko's deathbed agonies came just before a major summit meeting between Russia and the European Union in Finland, when Putin and his entourage again faced awkward questions from reporters about an opponent's sudden death.

Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted Putin's aide on EU relations Sergei Yastrzhembsky as saying: "One cannot help being alarmed by the deliberately pin-point deaths of people coinciding with international events in which Putin takes part."

"These are well-orchestrated plans to discredit the Russian state and its leadership."

Asked who might be behind the campaign to undermine Putin, the Russian emigres suggested two possibilities.

"It could be senior security service and military people who believe Putin is dangerous for Russia because the country is collapsing and Russia is losing control of parts of its territory like the Caucasus," one said.

"Or it could be part of a battle between opposing Kremlin factions for control after Putin's term ends in 2008."

Political commentators have identified two principal Kremlin factions vying for control ahead of the presidential elections.
Deaths predicted

One is headed by Igor Sechin, the shadowy deputy chief of Putin's administration who is believed to have a KGB background and leads a grouping of nationalistic and hardline elements in the military and security forces dubbed the "siloviki."

The other centers on Dmitry Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister and old ally of Putin, and includes some of the country's most powerful oligarchs.

As the political temperature rises ahead of the elections, the emigres predicted more sudden and violent deaths of well-known Putin opponents.

One target, they said, might be Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former billionaire owner of the Yukos oil company, which they maintain was bankrupted on the Kremlin's orders after Putin turned on him. Khodorkovsky is currently in a Siberian prison serving a 9-year term for fraud and tax evasion.

Russia's pro-government media had a different theory about who was behind Litvinenko's killing. They pointed the finger of blame at Putin's enemies abroad, who might have wanted to smear Russia's secret services.

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http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/26/spy.analysis.reut/index.html