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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8432
Location: Italy
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 Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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So there it is:
| Quote: | (...) Litvinenko "was giving Scaramella lots of information about Russian and criminal infiltrations in Italy, but most of it was very difficult to verify and crosscheck. It was a little bit out on a limb." In the old days, Litvinenko had been familiar with criminal clans in Russia, now he was making risky approaches to the Italian mafia. Scaramella believed if they could get inside this network, they would be able to leverage much more damaging intelligence about Italian politicians.
They spread their net wider. The Litvinenko dossier lists a dizzying roll call of names investigated by the pair, among them Semion Mogilevich, the darkest figure in Russian organised crime - a notorious Ukrainian whose network extended from Kiev to Naples. Mogilevich, a striking man at barely 5ft 6in and more than 20 stone, has a portfolio that includes private banks, financing the sale of enriched uranium and laundering his money through companies listed on the New York stock exchange. He was already on the FBI's wanted list but, according to Litvinenko's sources, had extensive links to Putin's government.
Taking on Mogilevich, who runs a private army of brutal killers, was a huge risk for a civilian outfit such as the Mitrokhin Commission, and Litvinenko soon picked up word that he was enraging the Ukrainian's siloviki friends in Moscow. (...)
But Litvinenko would not back off. In October 2005, he claimed to have uncovered an FSB agent hiding in Naples, a man he believed had been in deep cover since 1999. This FSB agent was Ukrainian by birth and, according to Litvinenko, he had strong links to Mogilevich's mob. His name was Alexander Talik, he was born in 1970 and, according to the Italian dossier and to depositions read out in a subsequent Italian court hearing, had served with the Red Army before being recruited by the FSB, where he rose to the rank of captain.
Talik, at the same hearing, would admit to having served in the FSB until 1977, but denied everything else. He said Scaramella had tried to strong-arm him into providing information to the commission on Mogilevich and Ukrainian criminals based in Italy. When he refused, the court heard, Litvinenko and Scaramella resorted to fabrication: they tried to frame Talik as part of a criminal conspiracy, hoping this would persuade him to cooperate.(...)
In accordance with their alleged plan, Litvinenko sent Scaramella a fax in October 2005 warning him of a Russian security services operation to kill Litvinenko's brother, Maxim, Scaramella and a political associate of Berlusconi's. The detail of the plot was bizarre: a white transit van with Ukrainian numberplates, apparently en route from Kiev to Naples, was carrying a consignment of grenades, hidden inside hollowed-out bibles, to be used to mount attacks on the three men. The alleged recipient and hit man was Talik.
Litvinenko and his brother reported the threat to the local police in Senigallia. Scaramella reported the plot to the police in Rome. A police patrol in Abruzzo did indeed discover two white vans with Ukrainian numberplates and a concealed shipment of grenades. Six Ukrainians were arrested and charged with smuggling arms.
At Litvinenko's suggestion, Scaramella also gave police the name of the FSB officer in Moscow who they said was managing Talik. Still nothing happened. Police in fact had their doubts about Scaramella - the details he provided about the vans' progress seemed just too precise.
In November, Litvinenko took matters into his own hands and "revealed" the entire plot to the Ukrainian media, including Talik's name. The Italian authorities, by now suspicious of the Mitrokhin Commission, Scaramella and Litvinenko, had begun recording their phone calls. One tap caught Litvinenko crowing to Scaramella, "All the Ukrainian newspapers have published and all the Ukrainian citizens know about Talik and the plot. I also indicated that Talik has been arrested."
In fact, Talik had not been arrested, and evidence presented at a later court hearing suggested he was in a mood for revenge. A phone tap, played to Talik in court, captures his reaction. "Complete bullshit has been written about me," he complains. "Litvinenko has blamed me for organising arms shipments from the Ukraine." More chillingly, he continues, "I've asked for the address of this arsehole in London and I've given a dossier to Vitalich who will take everything to Moscow." Asked by the person on the line who Vitalich was, Talik refuses to explain, insisting only that Vitalich would pass on this contract on Litvinenko's life to three powerful sponsors, all siloviki
In court, Talik admitted making the call - but the reference to Litvinenko was merely an idle threat, he said. He denied accusations that he had high-ranking contacts both in the Ukrainian mafia and in the Kremlin and said he had been enraged by Litvinenko's outing of him as an FSB agent to the Ukrainian media.
The Italian police initially took seriously the threat caught on the phone tap; but, given that they now were also convinced Litvinenko and Scaramella had tried to frame Talik, they alerted no one. The police also began probing how Talik had stayed in Italy for six years with no visa. By February 2006, nine months before Litvinenko was poisoned, they had assembled a 73-page dossier on him.
(...)
In January 2006, Litvinenko had attended Boris Berezovsky's lavish 60th birthday party at Blenheim Palace, where he met a ghost from the past. He was seated on the same table as Andrei Lugovoi, a former FSB agent whom he had known in Moscow during the 90s. Lugovoi had gone on to serve 14 months in prison, for helping a Berezovsky business partner evade prosecution. He told Litvinenko that since getting out he had become a multimillionaire, running a private security agency that provided bodyguards to rich Muscovites.
Litvinenko should have been wary of Lugovoi from the start, but the lure of money was too strong. Otherwise he might have found out that Lugovoi was a close associate of Alexander Talik ...
(from RP's Guardian link)
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Thanks - it all finally makes sense! The Brits' "Putin wanted him killed" spin made no sense whatsoever - Litvinenko was a gnat, a total nonentity from Putin's standpoint and in any case the bad political logic of the timing (just before the Russian G8 summit) ruled that line out.
To me, the murder itself stank of mafias+mafia-linked ex/near-intel zones, so one way or another it was sure to be about "messing around with someone who has friends who have friends". I had been thinking about it a lot recently, re-reading the info on the Italian side - and come to the conclusion Litvinenko's connection with Scaramella and via Scaramella the Naples-based Camorra+Ukrainian mafias nexus - with relative dealings in radioactive materials - could not be a "pure coincidence"/side-issue in relation to the who-and-why of Litvenenko's death, it had to be the central issue - as this reconstruction makes clear.
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish
Last edited by parvati_roma on Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:11 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Russian Patriot
Joined: 22 Aug 2003
Posts: 787
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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You are most likely correct .Western Ukrainians would team up with anyone against anything Russian.
Btw Mogilevich was arrested last week. |
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Sweejak
Joined: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 340
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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Link to arrest of Mogilevich.
Semyon Mogilevich, the 'East European mafia boss', captured in Moscow.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3253243.ece
Related:
How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington
| Quote: | Former Federal Bureau of Investigation director William Sessions once condemned Russia’s rising mafia. “We can beat organized crime,” he told a Moscow security conference in 1997.
Today, Mr. Sessions is a lawyer for one of the FBI’s “Most Wanted”: Semyon Mogilevich, a Ukraine-born Russian whom the FBI says is one of Russia’s most powerful organized-crime figures.
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| Quote: | | At times, even clients’ names are camouflaged by lobbyists — despite federal laws making clear that they aren’t allowed to disguise identities by taking fees from intermediaries. Without such rules, says prominent Washington ethics lawyer Jan Baran, “you would just have a bunch of shell organizations identified as clients of lobbyists and lobbying firms.” |
http://www.buchanan.org/blog/?p=716 |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8432
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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From the Times link on Mogilevich:
| Quote: | | An investigation by US newspaper the Village Voice, which apparently brought a death threat for its author, cited classified FBI and Mossad documents claiming that he was responsible for trafficking nuclear materials, drugs, prostitutes, precious gems, and stolen art. He was also said to have run a series of contract hit squads operating in the US and Europe. |
Village Voice story on Mogilevich: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9821,friedman,203,1.html
| Quote: | | (...) Strongest in the Ukraine, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the U.S., Mogilevich has increased his strength by forging ties with other powerful Russian mob groups as well as with the Italian Camorra. |
2 + 2 = 4 + 2 = 6 + 2 = 8 + 2 = 10: Talik was Mogilevich's man in Naples to handle his Camorra links; Mogilevich trafficks in nuclear materials, toxic waste, weapons drugs, prostitutes etc etc and runs international hit squads; Litvinenko and Scaramella wanted to use Talik for intox-scams focussed on Mogilevich's organisation in Russia, tried to frame Talik to make him cooperate; Litvinenko got the frameup story into the Ukrainian press; Talik was furious, told Mogilevich's HQ in Moscow enough is enough: byebye Litvinenko.
Reason for using polonium: Mogilevich's lot traffick in nuke-stuff so no problem to obtain; hit-contact was to be in a classy hotel in central London swarming with police so method had to be 1) silent and 2) not immediate but gradual - so as to let the hit-man leave the UK in peace. Which means a substance that's toxic enough to kill someone with a single dose but acts fairly slowly and is "unusual" so won't be quickly diagnosed. For these requirements, polonium was a perfectly rational choice.
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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Russian Patriot
Joined: 22 Aug 2003
Posts: 787
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| Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Sweejak wrote: | Link to arrest of Mogilevich.
Semyon Mogilevich, the 'East European mafia boss', captured in Moscow.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3253243.ece
Related:
How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington
| Quote: | Former Federal Bureau of Investigation director William Sessions once condemned Russia�s rising mafia. �We can beat organized crime,� he told a Moscow security conference in 1997.
Today, Mr. Sessions is a lawyer for one of the FBI�s �Most Wanted�: Semyon Mogilevich, a Ukraine-born Russian whom the FBI says is one of Russia�s most powerful organized-crime figures.
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| Quote: | | At times, even clients� names are camouflaged by lobbyists � despite federal laws making clear that they aren�t allowed to disguise identities by taking fees from intermediaries. Without such rules, says prominent Washington ethics lawyer Jan Baran, �you would just have a bunch of shell organizations identified as clients of lobbyists and lobbying firms.� |
http://www.buchanan.org/blog/?p=716 |
Nothing Russian about him .He is jewish.He is a citizen of Israel. Nice how the site tries to make him Russian.This a tactic the newspaper in my town used to do till we complained.
| Quote: | | The enigmatic leader of the Red Mafia is a 52-year-old Ukrainian-born Jew named Semion Mogilevich |
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9821,friedman,203,1.html
Btw I have the book read mafiya and argued that they were almopst to a man all jews back on the old Stratfor forum .A few years later Stratfor wrote a piece confirming what I was saying back then. I know from personal experience that in Toronto they are all jewish also. |
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Sweejak
Joined: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 340
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| Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:27 pm Post subject: |
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Biden, one of Obama's presumed running mates has resurrected Litvinenko.
| Quote: | Key US Senator wants "confrontation" with Putin
Sun Dec 3, 5:45 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Incoming chairman of the Senate foreign affairs
committee, Joe Biden, called for the United States to challenge
Russian President Vladimir Putin following the poisoning death of
former KGB spy and Kremlin critic Alexandre Litvinenko.
"I don't know whether he's involved (in the poisoning), but our
relations with Russia have to get straightened out to begin with,"
Biden said on Fox television.
"Russia is moving more and more toward an oligarchy here. Putin is
consolidating power," Biden said, adding that the United States had
failed to challenge Putin for several years.
"I think that Russia is sliding further away from genuine democracy
and a free-market system and more toward a command economy and the
control of a single man," he said, adding that he is "not a big fan of
Putin's."
"I think we should have a direct confrontation with Putin politically
about the need for him to change his course of action," Biden said.
Asked if such a confrontation could include pushing Russia out of the
G-8 summit of industrialized nations, Biden said no.
But, he said, "I would consider laying down markers about whether or
not, as he continues to consolidate power within that economy and in
that country, whether or not he warrants continued membership," he
said.
In a letter published after his death in a London hospital,
Litvinenko, poisoned by a highly toxic radioactive substance, polonium
210, accused Putin of direct involvement in his murder, which the
Russian president promptly denied. |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8432
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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yeah I can imagine the reaction... 
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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Sweejak
Joined: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 340
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ferdinand
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
Posts: 3291
Location: 43.12N 5.93E
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| Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:15 pm Post subject: |
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Plain funny. This is pure metallic mercury, not a toxic salt of it. And hidden in her car... Telepathic poison ?
She found yet a new way to draw attention...
If one finds water in her car, she will complaint for a drowning attempt...
_________________
ferd.
best but not beast... |
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Sweejak
Joined: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 340
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| Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 10:58 am Post subject: |
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Snip via list, the link seems defective, besides my lack of French, the WAPO link also doesn't take me to the story referenced:, I presume it is this one.
http://tinyurl.com/5gwvpw
| Quote: | Oops! Le Figaro reports that the police in Strasbourg has tracked traces of mercury in Moskalenko's car back to the previous owner who says that he'd broken a thermometer there. Moskalenko has confirmed that she didn't clean the car after the purchase:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2008/10/22/01016-20081022ARTF...
One can close the case unless, of course, the owner falls from polonium 210 poisoning in a few days.
Characteristically, the WP made itself fool again by publishing this editorial yesterday:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/21/AR200...
This quote is delicious:
"Perhaps this was an unfortunate accident; the police in Strasbourg say they are still investigating. But history suggests otherwise. Numerous opponents of Mr. Putin have been killed or gravely sickened by poisoning."
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"Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision.” Biden |
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Sweejak
Joined: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 340
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| Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 11:35 am Post subject: |
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This must be the Le Figaro article:
http://tinyurl.com/5kss2q
_________________
"Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision.” Biden |
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ferdinand
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
Posts: 3291
Location: 43.12N 5.93E
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| Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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Usual antirussian propaganda.
How could metal mercury poison anybody ?
But great to poison minds, in fact...
_________________
ferd.
best but not beast... |
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