DECEMBER 2006

From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/1/2006 3:57 AM

November 30, 2006

Assassin? Russia still fits bill

Domineering presence alone convicts Kremlin of former spy's poisoning in the minds of many.

Anna Badkhen / San Francisco Chronicle

It could be a Cold War thriller.

A former KGB agent is killed by poisoning. The men behind the Kremlin walls are assumed to be at fault. Official denials are met with knowing shrugs.

Whether the Russian government is really behind the death of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, 21st century Russia still looks like the kind of country that would assassinate its adversaries James Bond-style by slipping radioactive polonium-210 into their sushi.

After all, a former KGB spy holds the nation's highest office. Former intelligence operatives are senior Cabinet members. The state controls virtually every media outlet. Many who, like Litvinenko, dare to criticize the government are intimidated, imprisoned or exiled. Some are murdered, their cases unsolved.

The Kremlin obstructs the work of international watchdogs and silences domestic adversaries who criticize human-rights abuses, particularly in the ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/1/2006 11:32 PM
Resident of Breakaway Province Detained in Georgia for Spying for Russia

01.12.2006

MosNews
The Georgian Interior Ministry said Friday that its counterespionage agents had detained a resident of the breakaway region of South Ossetia who had been recruited by Russia’s Federal Security Service, the Associated Press reports.
The suspect, identified as Kakha Bagauri or Bagayev, confessed to passing information on Georgia’s army to the agent who recruited him in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, ministry spokesman Shota Khizanishvili said.
The alleged spy also said he had hired Chechens in Georgia’s Pankisi gorge to carry out terrorist acts in South Ossetia “so that they would be detained ahead of time and the Georgian side would be accused of violating the agreements” on the cease-fire in the breakaway region, the spokesman told The Associated Press.
Georgian television channels showed the alleged spy’s confession.
Georgian-Russian relations plummeted ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/2/2006 10:26 PM
Litvinenko was victim of 'Russian rogue agents'
Publication time: 1 December 2006, 16:13
British intelligence sources increasingly suspect that Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy killed with a radioactive poison, was the victim of a plot involving "rogue elements" within the Russian state, the Guardian has learned.

While ruling out any official involvement by Vladimir Putin's government, investigators believe that only those with access to state nuclear laboratories could have mounted such a sophisticated plot.

Police were last night closing in on a group of men who entered the UK among a large crowd of Muscovite football fans. The group of five or more arrived shortly before Mr Litvinenko fell ill and attended the CSKA Moscow match against Arsenal at the Emirates stadium on November 1. They flew back shortly afterwards. While describing them only as witnesses, police believe their presence could hold the key to the former spy's death.

Last night, the Irish government said it was launching a separate investigation focussing ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/3/2006 12:20 AM
Litvinenko Could Travel Freely Between Russia and Britain, Emigre Says
Publication time: Today at 10:16 Djokhar time
Russian-language media in the United States are divided over whether the Nov. 24 death-by-poison of writer and former Russian secret agent Alexander Litvinenko was government-backed or intended to frame Putin, though most agree Alexander Litvinenko is a curious target.
 
Though Litvinenko has been highly critical of Putin and published a book reporting the Russian government was responsible for the 1999 bombings in Moscow that killed hundreds of civilians, many say his role as a critic was too minor to warrant being killed by such a gruesome, high-profile method. Compared with the death of investigative American journalist in Moscow, who risked her life daily in Russia writing articles critical of the Kremlin, they say that Litvinenko's death doesn't quite make sense.
 
Putin's government is unlikely to be behind the poisoning, contends Vlad Kirgiz of Sacramento-based Afisha TV and Radio. He says Litvinenko was relatively unimportant ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/4/2006 12:24 AM
FSB Poisoning Used For Anti-Islamic Hysteria in the West
Publication time: Today at 10:35 Djokhar time
Reports that KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko converted to Islam before his mysterious poisoning with radioactive polonium 210 is raising suspicions that he may have been involved in a plot to smuggle the deadly substance to terrorist groups willing to pay millions even for a gram, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is reporting on Sunday.

Scotland Yard detectives are now trying to discover if Litvinenko had any secret links with Islamic extremist terror groups, the London Sunday Express is reporting.

Their biggest fear, the paper reports, is that Litvinenko, who died of polonium-210 poisoning in a London hospital, may have been helping al-Qaida or other extremist groups get hold of radioactive material to be used in a devastating "dirty" atom bomb.

Britain's secret intelligence service MI6 had earlier learned that al-Qaida was prepared to pay $ 3 million a gram for polonium 210, G2 Bulletin reported last week.

Litvinenko's ...
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