UK 1 November 2006

UK 1 November 2006

1 November 2006 – Alex Goldfarb, a friend of Litvinenko’s who ran the International Foundation for Civil Liberties, a human rights group, funded by Boris Berezovsky, the Russian émigré who lives in London, and a critic of Putin. Berezovsky is the man, Litvinenko claims, he was ordered to assassinate by the FSB, the KGB successor. Goldfarb accused the Kremlin of ordering his friends death and implicated Andrei Logovoi. (26 November 2006 Sunday Observer Guardian UK).

1 November 2006 – Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun. Lugovoi another ex-KGB officer, and Kovtun another Russian, met Litvinenko at the Millennium hotel in Grosner square, just after his encounter with Scaramella. Lugovoi, now a security operator in Moscow, claims Litvinenko drank nothing at their meeting. (26 November 2006 Sunday Observer Guardian UK).

1 November 2006 – Mario Scaramella, an Italian academic and security expert, who is part of an Italian parliamentary inquiry into KGB activity says, he met Litvinenko for lunch lasting 35 minutes, in the Itsun sushi bar on London’s Piccadilly on 1 November 2006. The same day Litvinenko became ill. Claims they met “because” both their names were on a hit list which he received an email about. Scotland Yard are investigating him. (26 November 2006 Sunday Observer Guardian UK).

1 November 2006 – A meeting on 1 November between Litvinenko and two Russians at the Millennium hotel Mayfair. One of the men Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard, had travelled to … business associate Dimitri Kovtun, said they offered Litvinenko alcohol. Detectives of Scotland Yard anti-terrorist branch are trying to piece together the movements of Litvinenko on 1 November, when he met Mario Scaramella at a branch of the Itsu restaurant chain, the first of several meetings held by the former Russian agent that day. (Independent UK Cahal Milmo 30 November 2006).

1 November 2006 – Around mid afternoon on the day Litvinenko was fatally poisoned ,he met Russian businessmen Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Logovei who says Litvinenko did not drink anything while they were with him. Later Kovtun li the drizzle to Muswell hill. His trip caught the grainy CCTV which was being studied by Scotland Yard. Litvinenko called Kovtun the following day to cancel their meeting. The victim of one of the most elaborate assassinations in political history. His death has bewildered Scotland Yard’s most experienced Detectives. (Sunday Observer Guardian 26 November 2006 UK).

1 November 2006 – A perpetrator may have entered Britain shortly before 1 November 2006, the date Litvinenko is thought to have been poisoned, and they may have fled London after administering the deadly dose. Litvinenko was as good as dead as seen as the first alpha rays entered his body. Litvinenko’s dissident friends blame the Kremlin. The Kremlin blames Litvinenkos dissident friends. Russian agents have been named central suspect has emerged. Vladimir Kuznetsov, former chief of Russias state atomic central agency. He described Litvinenkos death by plutonium 210 as “journalistic invention”. (Sunday Observer Guardian UK 26 November 2006).

1 November 2006 – Poisoning of the former KGB agent who is seriously ill in a London hospital. SVR. Mr Litvinenko claims he met a former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi at the hotel along with another Russian. Mr Lugovoi said yesterday he would not comment. Mr Litvinenko claimed to have obtained documents about Anna Politkovsky’s death, on the day Litvinenko was poisoned. Mr Litvinenko said Dr Scaramella, passed him material that suggested secret service operatives were connected with the death of Politkovsky. Dr Scaramella also showed him a hit list which named him Litvinenko. (Jeevan Vasagar. Tom Parfitt in Moscow. The Guardian UK 23 Novembver 2006 ).

1 November 2006 – Goldfarb said all options should be explored including whether the poison might have been sprinkled into Litvinenko’s drink during a meeting at a central London hotel on 1 November before he went to the sushi restaurant. Litvinenko briefly met two men from Moscow, one of them was a former KGB officer he knew for tea at the hotel Goldfarb said. Litvinenko said he had not previously met the second man. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied involvement. (Pravda Ru article 27 November 2006 front page 20 November 2006).

1 November 2006 – Scaramella told Italian reporters that when he met with Litvinenko on 1 November he showed him emails from a mutual intelligence acquaintance containing a list of individuals whose lives were said to be in danger from criminals based in St Petersburg. The emails reportedly claim that the same criminals killed Anna Politkovskaya. Litvinenko was investigating her fatal shooting in Moscow in October when he was poisoned. (New York Times Alan Cowell 28 November 2006 Peter Kiefer in Rome).

1 November 2006 – Mr Litvinenko a former Russian secret service agent accused the Russian authorities of poisoning him, with what police said was an ingestion of radioactive isotope polonium 210. Litvinenko claimed to have refused an order to assassinate Berezovsky in the late 1990’s. I credit him with saving my life. Police tracked Litvinenko on 1 November to a sushi bar, a five star hotel in central London and his home in north London. They also found traces of radiation in the offices of a security company in Mayfair called Erinys, Litvinenko visited its offices. (New York Times 28 November 2006 Alan Lowell and Peter Kiefer in Rome).

1 November 2006 – Yuri Shvets, a former Russian security official old BBC that Litvnenko believed he was poisoned when he met three Russian businessmen, Andrei Lugovoy, Dmitri Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, at a central London hotel on 1 November 2006. He said he drank a tea which was not made in front of him. (Indias national newspaper online 18 December 2006 Hasan Suroor).

1 November 2006 – Radiation was found in offices of Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky. An exiled Russian billionaire and opponent of the Kremlin. Confirmed today that police found traces in his offices following the death last week of Litvinenko. The discovery of radioactive traces at Mr Berezovsky Mayfair offices highlighted one more clue about Litvinenko’s movements on the day he first reported feeling unwell November 1 2006. Mr Beresovsky visited Litvinenko in his hospital bed before he died, apart from the traces at his offices, where Litvinenko was a frequent visitor. He has not been implicated in the police inquiry. (New York Times 28 November 206 Alan Lowell and Peter Kiefer in Rome).

1 November 2006 – Litvinenko told Scaramella, on the day he fell ill, that he had organised the smuggling of nuclear material out of Russia for his security service employers. Scaramella met Litvinenko on 1 November to discuss a death threat aimed at both of them. In an interview with the Independent soon after the poisoning became public, Scaramella said that Litvinenko was a friend since 2001, told him he had masterminded the smuggling of radioactive material to Zurich in 2000. The operation would have been one of the last carried out by Litvinenko while still an FSB officer, in a unit tackling organised crime and smuggling. (Independent UK Cahal Milmo Peter Popham and Jason Bennetto 29 November 2006 ).

1 November 2006 – Scaramella, an academic and examining magistrate based in Rome and Naples, had been due to meet Litvinenko on 10 November in London, but brought the meeting forward at short notice on 1 November. The Itsu restaurant in Piccadilly, where traces of polonum-210 were found, is thought to be the first location visited by Litvinenko on 1 November. Later he met the two Russian businessmen at a Mayfair hotel and visited the nearby offices of Berezovsky and a security firm where polonium traces were also found. Police said they were searching the five star Sheraton park lane hotel in Mayfair and an office building in west end. (Independent UK Cahal Milmo. Peter Popham. Jason Bennetto. 29 November 2006).

1 November 2006 - Scaramella says he has long been involved in investigating the smuggling of radioactive material by the KGB ad its successors. He said in 2005 that Soviet destroyers had laid 20 nuclear torpedos in the Bay of Naples in 1970, where they remain. Berezovsky was visited almost daily by Litvinenko. (Independent UK Cahal Milmo. Peter Popham. Jason Bennetto. 29 November 2006)

1 November 2006 – Litvinenko meets at a London hotel with another former KGB spy Andei Lugovoy and two other men he had never met before. Later goes to a sushi bar to meet Italian academic Mario Scaramella who showed him an email, identifying émigrés to Britain being targeted by Russian agents and the identities of those who gunned down Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow in October. Later feels unwell and is taken to a London hospital. 20 November police said their counter terrorism unit is investigating. Traces of radiation were found at a number of sites including Litvineko’s north London home, the sushi bar and the hotel he visited earlier that day. (AP London Int Herald Tribune 29 November 2006).

1 November 2006 – Death of an ex-agent … Neil Buckley. Arkady Ostrovsky. Stephen Fedler. Forces connected to Ramzan Kadyrov the Chechen PM were seen as possible suspects in Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. Igor Shuvalov a senior aide to Putin told the FT this week, the two recent deaths were links in the same chain. Evgenia Albats a Russian journalist and author of a book about the KGB said the FSB could have carried out Litvinenkos murder which bore its handwriting is run totally by the KGB they call themselves.

1 November 2006 – British spy poison case detector to fly to Moscow and Rome this week. The Sunday Telegraph reported. Security service in Britain suspect that Russian agents or a rogue unit were behind the sophisticated nuclear weapons elements used for the murder. Scotland Yard’s counter terrorism unit to question two Russians and an Italian professor who lunched with Litvinenko at the same Japanese restaurant in central London. Scotland Yard’s officers flying to Moscow to interview Lugovoy and Kovrun. Detectives also travel to Rome to see Scaramella. (27 November 2006 Russia).

1 November 2006 – The last person to meet Alexander Litvinenko before he succumbed to the effects of radioactive poisoning was an expert in nuclear materials. Online site this is London says Mario Scaramella headed an organisation which traded dumped nuclear waste including old Soviet nuclear missiles. Litvinenko allegedly fell ill after the Sushi lunch and died 22 days later from poisoning by polonium. (27 November 2006 ).

1 November 2006 – Litvinenko meets at a London hotel with another former KGB spy Andrei Lugovoy and two other men he had never met before. Later goes to a sushi bar to meet Italian academic Mario Scaramella who shows him an email allegedly identifying émigrés to Britain being targeted by Russian agents and the identities of those who gunned down Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow in October. Later feels unwell taken to a London hospital.

1 November 2006 – Litvinenko told Scaramella on the day he fell ill that he had organised the smuggling of nuclear material out of Russia for his security service employers. Scaramella met Litvinenko on 1 November to discuss a death threat aimed at both of them. In an interview with the Independent soon after the poisoning became public Scaramella said that Litvinenko was a friend since 2001, told him he had masterminded the smuggling of radioactive material to Zurich in 2000. The operation could have been one of the last carried out by Litvinenko while still an FSB officer in a unit tackling organised crime and smuggling. (Independent Cahao Milmo. Peter Popham. Jason Bennetto).