Putin critic assasinated.

[Dakine]

LONDON (Reuters) - A former KGB spy accused Vladimir Putin of his murder on Friday in a statement read out after his death, which British health officials said had been caused by a rare radioactive substance found in his body.

The Russian president brushed off the charge as "political provocation", but London said it had raised the "serious matter" of Alexander Litvinenko's death with Moscow and asked it to give British police any information it had.

Britain's top-level cabinet team, know as COBRA, which gathers for civil emergencies, met three times to discuss Litvinenko's death, a sign of escalating worry over the affair.

British health officials said a rare radioactive isotope, polonium 210, had been discovered in the body of the 43-year-old Kremlin critic who died overnight in a London hospital.

"You may succeed in silencing one man. But a howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life," Litvinenko said in a statement read out by friends outside the hospital where he died.

"May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.

Police were trying to work out how the radioactive poison entered the body of Litvinenko who wasted away over three weeks, losing all his hair.

Police said traces of Polonium 210 had been found at a sushi bar where Litvinenko met an Italian academic, a hotel where he met another former Russian agent, both on the day he fell ill, and at his north London home.

"MAJOR DOSE"

"We know he had a major dose," Health Protection Agency chief Pat Troop said.

Police were seen carrying metal boxes away from the sushi restaurant in central London.

"My son died yesterday. He was killed by a little tiny nuclear bomb," Litvinenko's weeping father Walter said.

Dr Andrea Sella, lecturer in chemistry at University College London, told Reuters polonium 210 was one of the rarest substances on the planet and few could obtain it.

"This is not some random killing. This is not a tool chosen by a group of amateurs. These people had some serious resources behind them," he said.

The dead man's allegation of what would amount to the first Kremlin assassination carried out in the West since the Cold War dogged Putin at an European Union summit in Helsinki. Putin said there was no evidence implicating the Kremlin.

"It is a great pity that even something as tragic as a man's death is being used for political provocation," Putin said. "I hope the British authorities would not contribute to instigating political scandals. It has nothing to do with reality.

Litvinenko, who became a British citizen last month, was one of a group of Putin opponents who have clustered in London, including billionaire Boris Berezovsky and Chechen separatists, frequently attracting Moscow's scorn.

A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said it had discussed the affair with the Russian ambassador in London.

"The ambassador was asked to convey to the authorities in Moscow to provide any information they might have that would assist the police with their inquiries," she said.

A Russian ex-spy came forward in Moscow to acknowledge that he was the man who met Litvinenko at a London hotel with another Russian businessman the day he suddenly fell ill.

The man, Andrei Lugovoy, said in a statement they had met to discuss a business project at Litvinenko's request and he had nothing to do with the former spy's death.

British anti-terrorism police investigating the case said officers could go to Russia to talk to him.

European countries depend on Putin's Russia for natural gas and have big investments in oil companies there. Putin has been an ally of the West against Islamic extremism since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

But relations have been strained in recent years over what Western governments call Moscow's slide towards authoritarianism.

Litvinenko had been investigating the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, also a vocal critic of Putin, who was gunned down at the Moscow flat last month.

This is too big of a coincidence, 2 critics of the russian president assasinated by a very rare isotope. It might sound extreme, but i hope this isnt russia sliding back into another totalitarian regime.

[Lucifer]

Oh, I am sure he was murdered by Putin - but it looks as if it was done as warning to the nr 1 defector in London who threatened Putin with a coup.

[weedguru_animal]

you say 'sliding back', Dakine, but unfortunately Russia has been like this for a long time. Their human rights record is appaling with regular police killings and beatings. Dissent is crushed or worse the dissidents are slaughtered. Putin is a bad man. He always has been and always will be.NGOs are regularly pushed further and further away from been able to monitor the reality of Putin's despotic regime. The methods for dealing with Chechnya are horrific with Putin passing the body count off as part of the ongoing global 'war on terror'. But there is one reason why Putin is popular amongst russians and that is GAS. The state run company, Gazprom, own 1/4 of the world's gas supply and so must be treated with amicable diplomacy if the rest of europe wish to purchase gas.
So, it comes down to natural resources like so many 'partnerships' in the modern political world. I very much doubt that the british police services are capable of or willing to investigate the recent death on british soil too meticulously.

[CaNuCk]

What kind of class would I take to learn about this stuff? I was thinking of taking political science just because I'm hoping its kind of a current events class, but really I don't know if it will be...

[Weedguru~N0isenkiss3s]

What kind of class would I take to learn about this stuff? I was thinking of taking political science just because I'm hoping its kind of a current events class, but really I don't know if it will be...

I went to my friend's first year political sciences class and they did talk about some current events but a lot of it had to do with the charter of rights that day. :O It was pretty interesting though!

[weedguru_animal]

To gain a near decent idea of what is really going on in the world, the only way is to regularly consume the editorials from a healthy, cosmopolitan variety of publications. News instituions large and small that carry the viewpoint of events from many angles. The more angles you can find, the greater the chance of piecing together some semblance of truth and fact. I was in education until I reached 20 years old and what I was exposed to at school and UNI was ONLY was information that is really only relevant to passing associated exams, not information providing me with a accurate global view. School isn't designed to open your eyes. It is designed to teach you skills to pass exams which will then help you find work.

[weedguru_animal]

After scratching below the surface of the mainstream news institutions I am now inclined to believe that Putin and his malicious, murderous crew are not to blame for Litvenenko's radioative termination.

Given the ex-spy's connections to:>
1. high ranking figures in the Russian-Israeli mafia (Leonid Nevzlin,former chief executive officer of Yukos Oil who is the subject of a Russian government arrest warrant for murder, embezzlement, and tax evasion. Nevzlin, a former head of the Russian Jewish Congress, is currently living in Tel Aviv under the protection of the Israeli government. Nevzlin's exiled Russian-Israeli comrades include Vladimir Dubov, a major Yukos shareholder and wanted oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky-wayneMadsenReport) and
2. various other powerful criminals(when Litveninenko worked for the russian FSB, which is the modern version of the KGB, part of his job involved investigating foriegn businesman who had committed crimes against the russian state)...
...it seems more reasonable to assume that his murder was arranged by one of his many dodgy connections, one which thought they could kill two birds with one piece of Polonium. He knew an enormous amount of extremely sensitive information about numerous exiled Russians, some of whom are wanted not just for financial crimes but also for organized murder and racketeering, and as he was a fervent anti-Putin campaigner, Litvenenko's murder was always likely to be immediately pinned on Putin. Which woud be a pleasurable outcome for ALL those exiled from Russia under Putin's regime.

Apologies if that doesn't make any sense. I just wanted to try point out that there were others with more to gain from his death, and more potent motives for the murder, than Putin.

The Russian-Israeli mafia is an entirely new subject for me, but they seem ultra powerful and politically active, with several intelligent sources pointing their fingers at the group for the recent execution of a Lebenese government official. An execution which, much like the Litvenenko saga, was instantly blamed on the most obvious candidate; which in that case was the Syrians.

[Dr. Greenthumb]

I don't see why it's received so much publicity. Spies die all the time, that's what spies do. Is anyone really that surprised that someone submersed in a world of politics, mafia, and espionage would turn up dead.

I agree with animal, I don't think it was Putin. Not because of the other people that could benefit from his death but from the amount of media coverage the issue has received. It seems like someone out there is pushing for an anti-putin public opinion, for all we know the CIA did it. When Putin had a reporter killed not to long ago it didn't even make national headlines.

[weedguru_animal]

It has received such huge media exposure because the poisoning was carried out on British soil, the victim was treated and died on british soil. We have a half decent set of media institutions in the UK. Much more able to report the news than their Russian counterparts. The death of an anti Putin campaigner in Russia would be a million times easier to suppress than the death of a anti-Putin campaigner in the UK.