November 28, 2006

LONDON: The former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who last week died in an apparent poisoning, travelled to Israel weeks before his death to pass on a dossier on how the Kremlin took over the Russian energy giant Yukos, The Times reported yesterday.

The dossier, which contained evidence of the Russian Government's dealings with those running Yukos, was to be presented to London's Metropolitan Police yesterday, the newspaper said.

Mr Litvinenko, who died late on Thursday in a case linked to alpha radiation from polonium 210 in his urine, was a fierce critic of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

The Times said he passed the dossier to Leonid Nevzlin, the former second in command at Yukos. Mr Nevzlin fled to Tel Aviv because he feared for his life after Russia took over the company and sold it off.

"Alexander had information on crimes committed with the Russian Government's direct participation," Mr Nevzlin told The Times.

"He only recently gave me and my attorneys documents that shed light on the most significant aspect of the Yukos affair."

Quoting unnamed investigators, The Times said that Mr Litvinenko had uncovered "startling" evidence of what happened to those who opposed the forced break-up of Yukos.

Several people linked to the company are reported to have disappeared, or died in mysterious circumstances, while others, such as its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, have been jailed.

Britain's strained relations with Russia worsened on Sunday, when the Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain, suggested Moscow might have been connected with Mr Litvinenko's death.

"The promise that President Putin had brought to Russia when he came to power has obviously been clouded by what's happened since and including some extremely murky murders."

He referred to the death of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a friend of Mr Litvinenko.

Under Mr Putin "there have been huge attacks on individual liberty and on democracy. And it's important that he retakes the democratic road, in my view."

Mr Hain's comments came as John Reid, the British Home Secretary, said the police inquiry had been upgraded from an "unexplained" to a "suspicious" death.

At the same time, experts voiced doubt that anyone acting alone could have used polonium 210 to kill Mr Litvinenko. One scientist said polonium 210 would kill so quickly only if combined into a "designer toxin" with another isotope, beryllium, in a complicated process that would require state sponsorship. Such a process was used by Britain in early atomic weapons in the 1950s.

"No individual could do this," said John Large, an independent nuclear consultant. "What you are talking about is the creation of a very clever little device, a designer poison pill, possibly created by nanotechnology."

He said the likely poison pill that killed Mr Litvinenko would have to have been manufactured in a special laboratory over two or three weeks and then used very quickly - possibly within 28 days - because the half-life of the isotope polonium is only 138 days.

Three people have been referred to a special clinic for tests following Mr Litvinenko's death, Britain's Health Protection Agency said yesterday. They were among more than 450 people who called a hotline for advice.

Agence France-Presse, Reuters - Guardian News & Media

Fredrick Töben comments: If Kevin MacDonald is correct in his expose of Jewish group strategic thinking, then the deaths are sacrifices that serve Jewish interests by enabling scapegoating of the Russian President.