Litvinenko: Case Closed?

In these days of heavy anti-Russia statements from most of the EU, and from the USA, how strange to read that the case of poisoned ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London on 23 Nov 2006, is still pretty much a mystery…

[…] Today, despite the popular misconception that the case has been solved, little, if any, forensic evidence has emerged that explains how, or even when, Litvinenko was exposed to Polonium 210. […]

In the Litvinenko case, the coroner’s report has never been completed. The crucial autopsy data has been denied not only to journalists and Litvinenko’s family on the grounds that it is part of an ongoing investigation, but also to Britain’s erstwhile partner in the investigation, Russia. While there may be good reason to keep an autopsy report secret from the public, keeping it secret from its investigative partner is mystifying. […]

This medical stone-walling left unanswered why British doctors repeatedly misdiagnosed Litvinenko, and, despite his symptoms of radiation exposure, did not test his urine specimens for alpha as well as gamma radiation, and never gave him the antidote Dimercaprol, which might have saved his life. When I examined the British police report sent to Moscow in June 2006 in support of its extradition request, I was stunned to see that without the medical reports, there was an almost total evidentiary vacuum, at least in terms of conventional evidence. The report cited no eye-witnesses, surveillance videotapes, fingerprints, Polonium container, or smoking teapot. Instead, the police report made it clear that the case was based on radiation traces. What made this kind of unconventional evidence vulnerable to misinterpretation, if it could be introduced in court at all, is that almost all the crime scenes at which the radiation was found were compromised. […]

I won’t be surprised if the Litvinenko case will be turned on its head in a few years’ time…

ps Is this blog turning into a pro-Russia platform, I wonder…