Poisonous Russians

[varsovian]

Georgy Markov take two, I see.
Comments?

[usenetposts]

They're up to their old tricks again.

[babiana]

Suspected Russian spy lived here 10 years
CSIS: Had radio, 3 cells, 2 cameras on him

PAUL CHERRY, The Gazette
Published: Wednesday, November 22, 2006

An alleged Russian spy is believed to have lived in Canada under a false
identity for more than a decade while he was working for an elite intelligence
agency, according to a summary of the evidence that led to his arrest.

The summary was made public yesterday by a Federal Court judge who is scheduled
to hear arguments today in the deportation case involving a man who is
identified only by his assumed name, Paul William Hampel.

According to the summary of the evidence: "The Canadian Security Intelligence
Service has reasonable grounds to believe the foreign national alleging to be
(Hampel) is a member of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (SVR), the Foreign
Intelligence Service component of the Russian Intelligence Services (RIS)."

CSIS labels such spies as "SVR illegals."

The agency describes them as "highly trained intelligence officers sent abroad
to live without the legal cover of an embassy or other government entity that
would give them diplomatic immunity in case of arrest."

Hampel was arrested Nov. 14 at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in
Dorval as he was preparing to leave the country. On Nov. 9, two federal
ministers had signed a security certificate alleging Hampel violated specific
sections of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by engaging in an act of
espionage.

Justice Pierre Blais, assigned to hear the case in Montreal, reviewed the
evidence used to produce the security certificate. The summary he made public
yesterday is only part of the evidence.

It contains very few details, but includes a description of what Hampel was
carrying when he was arrested. The list sounds like something straight out of a
Hollywood spy thriller: Canada Border Services Agency officers recovered a
shortwave radio, two digital cameras, the equivalent of $7,800 Canadian in five
different currencies, three cellular phones and five SIM cards, the computer
chips that store cellphone data. Some of the SIM cards were password-protected.

Hampel is alleged to have created a false identity, or "a legend," to live
covertly while spying in Canada and abroad.

He had an Ontario birth certificate that listed his date of birth as Dec. 11,
1965. But the number on the certificate was assigned to another person.

CSIS investigators were unable to find any legitimate birth or death records for
someone named Paul William Hampel with that birthdate.

The alleged spy is accused of having used the fake birth certificate to obtain
three Canadian passports between 1995 and 2002.

The SVR was created in 1991 as a successor to the notorious KGB. The evidence
summary quotes a report published in 2002 by Jane's Intelligence Digest that the
SVR was "rapidly stepping up its intelligence operations in North America,"
particularly in cities with sizable Russian emigre communities, like Toronto.

The evidence summary makes no mention of where Hampel resided while he is
alleged to have spied for the SVR. His lawyer, Stephane Handfield, said
yesterday he "did not have the mandate" to divulge where Hampel lived during the
past decade.

Handfield said he will probably ask for a delay in the proceedings today because
he received the summary only yesterday morning. He added that he was able to
meet with his client only on Sunday.

"All I can say is that the conditions of his detention are difficult, under the
circumstances," Handfield said.

[e-mail]

[varsovian]

The Ruski has died.
One state-owned Russian TV station said it's an anti-Putin plot.

[usenetposts]

If they can't find who did it in London, it means that all those cameras don't
actually do the job they are supposed to and we should get rid of them.

[babiana]

Home » World » Article
Kremlin critic killed by tiniest 'nuclear bomb'
The Sydney Morning Herald

November 26, 2006
Overcome: Alexander Litvinenko's father, Walter, cries while discussing his
son's death.

Overcome: Alexander Litvinenko's father, Walter, cries while discussing his
son's death.


FROM the steps of London's University College Hospital, the father of deceased
Russian intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko pointed the finger at the Kremlin.

An emotional Walter Litvinenko voiced the belief that his son had been killed on
the orders of the Russian Government "by a little, tiny nuclear bomb, so small
that you couldn't see it".

The medical doctor went on to say that the "people who killed him build big
nuclear bombs and missiles and … should not be trusted".

While family and friends grieve the death of the former KGB agent, who arrived
in Britain in 2000 fleeing a corruption prosecution in Russia, the investigation
into his death drew in the anti-terrorist branch of Scotland Yard, MI5, and MI6
(British intelligence and counter intelligence).

As remarkable details came out yesterday, it emerged police had called in the
Health Protection Agency on Thursday night, after Mr Litvinenko's urine sample
revealed "significant, large" traces of alpha radiation.

Traces of polonium-210, an emitter of alpha radiation, were also found in Mr
Litvinenko's home, a sushi restaurant where he had met a contact, Mario
Scaramella, on November 1, and the Millennium Hotel in central London, where he
had met a Russian former intelligence official, Andrei Lugovoy, and a second
man, also on November 1.

Until Thursday, doctors had been trying to detect thallium poisoning, a theory
which delayed identifying the radiation.

Investigators are now trying to establish is who would have had access to polonium.

Security services, who are normally reticent, confessed yesterday: "Nothing like
this has ever happened before. We are in uncharted territory."

Russia's President Vladimir Putin broke his silence to respond to the
allegations against him.

Speaking at a summit in Helsinki, Mr Putin was clearly angry at the furore.

"It's extremely regrettable that such a tragic event as death is being used for
political provocations," he said.

"I hope that they [the British] won't help fan political scandals which have no
grounds."

But it appeared British intelligence officials were no longer ruling out some
kind of Kremlin involvement last night.

Sources said that the use of such a sophisticated substance as polonium could
only lead to certain conclusions, which pointed towards the Kremlin, if only
indirectly.

In a deathbed statement, written and signed last week when he knew he was dying,
Mr Litvinenko made his position clear, accusing Mr Putin of being directly
responsible.

"You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price," he wrote.

"You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile
critics have claimed."
Poison delivers a horrible death

POLONIUM-210, the radioactive substance discovered in Alexander Litvinenko's
body, occurs at very low levels naturally but is made for use by industrial
plants to prevent the build-up of static electricity.

It is an effective, convenient and highly toxic poison. By weight, it is about
250 million times as toxic as cyanide, so a particle smaller than a dust mote
could be fatal.

Named by its discoverer, Marie Curie, after her native Poland, it occurs in
trace amounts in uranium ore.Once ingested it is hard to detect. It could be
administered as a powder or dissolved in liquid. There is no antidote.

[usenetposts]

I wonder whether the statement "the people who killed my son with a tiny little
nuclear bomb shouldn't be trusted with the big nuclear bombs" means that the
world would be a much safer place if only one government had nuclear weapons?

If so, if the US would be a much nicer country to everyone else in the world if
they alone had a nuclear capability, then isn't that grounds for making the
Russians hand over their weapons along with the Iranians?

Shouldn't Lech Kaczynski make that a condition on the Kremlin before agreeing
to allow the EU to do business with Russia?

[ianek70]

It's the perfect state killing - everyone on the entire planet now knows what
happens to the Kremlin's enemies, but not one of them can prove who did it.
Not only that, but the general public are now experts on polonium, and after so
many "serious" TV journalists starting interviews with the words, "It's almost
unbelievable, it's like a John le Carre novel, now tell us more about polonium,
professor," it must be helping the careers of a few spy novelists.

[usenetposts]

At the end of the day, I see a bit of automatic sympathy for the underdog
coming out in the western reporting, both the British and the polish reporting.
At the same time most well informed Russians I know - and these are quite free
to speak their mind to me - are amazed at the sentiment we've been showing to
someone who is of course an extremely ruthless man himself, and who formerly -
of his own volition - trained and operated as a killer.

And Berezovsky's no saint either.

[varsovian]

Well, he murdered the people he was told to, but when it came to murdering his
bribemaster Berezovsky he decided to turn tail and flee.
All the same, the TV are reporting him mainly as a fighter for democracy in
Russia, not as an over-achieving thug who came to a sticky end after meddling
in affairs which he couldn't control. "Out of his depth..."
However, he was right about Putin ... and you can't but feel sorry for someone
being murdered in such an incredibly slow, painful way. No-one should be
tortured to death. People can't understand extreme pain unless they experience
it themselves.

[ianek70]

varsovian napisał:

> Well, he murdered the people he was told to, but when it came to murdering
his
> bribemaster Berezovsky he decided to turn tail and flee.
> All the same, the TV are reporting him mainly as a fighter for democracy in
> Russia, not as an over-achieving thug who came to a sticky end after meddling
> in affairs which he couldn't control. "Out of his depth..."

It's all because people see the world of espionage as being completely black
and white. Governments are even more to blame than novelists - if you jump out
of helicopters, say 'shaken... not stirred', do lots of paperwork and kill
people you're a hero if one government pays your wages, but an evil treacherous
spy if a different state employs you.
Moscow bad - someone say Moscow bad, him good.

> However, he was right about Putin ... and you can't but feel sorry for
someone
> being murdered in such an incredibly slow, painful way. No-one should be
> tortured to death. People can't understand extreme pain unless they
experience
> it themselves.

Talking of pain...
They found a dead guy in Greenock the other day, so horribly mutilated that
even Strathclyde Polis were shocked and sickened that someone could do that to
another human being, and their spokesperson had to stay up all night inventing
metaphors to describe the amount of blood they found on the walls.
They suspected that drug dealers (who he owed money to) had cunningly broken
into his flat without leaving any trace, and silently scalped him, cut his face
off and done other unspeakable things before calmly leaving unnoticed and
locking the door behind them.

Fortunately, there was a happy ending, as it turned out he'd simply OD'd on
heroin and his dog had tried to eat his head.