Litvinenko Death: Part of Russian Oligarch's Plot Against Putin
Litvinenko was a crazy conspiracy theorist
who was deeply enmeshed in the Russian Mafia
Many of the so-called oligarchs
who made billions during Yeltsin's
corrupt reign, now live in London
If you want to know about Boris Berezovsky,
ask former Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov.
Except you can’t, because he was murdered in 2004,
shortly after writing up Berezovsky’s bullet-ridden bio,
‘Godfather Of The Kremlin’.
Berezovsky is now sitting in England on his 15 million-dollar estate.
Boris Berezovsky, a major critic whose asylum
in Britain has enraged the Kremlin,
was involved in the killing
He made a fortune in shady privatization deals
after the 1991 Soviet collapse and became
an influential Kremlin insider under Boris Yeltsin
Litvinenko's death in a London hospital Thursday was part of a plot against Russia. Boris Berezovsky, a major critic whose asylum in Britain has enraged the Kremlin, was involved in the killing."The death of Litvinenko — for Russia, for the security services — means nothing," Valery Dyatlenko, said on state-run Channel One television, contending that neither the Kremlin nor Russia's intelligence agencies would have reason to kill him. "I think this is another game of some kind by Berezovsky."
Berezovsky amassed a fortune in dubious privatization deals after the 1991 Soviet collapse and became an influential Kremlin insider under President Boris Yeltsin, but fell out of favor with Putin and fled for Britain in 2000 to avoid a money laundering probe which he said was politically motivated.
In untying this knot called the relationship between Berezovsky and Litvinenko, it was necessary to receive the maximum benefit — and the benefit here for Berezovsky is the accusation of Russia's involvement in the killing.
Litvinenko had close ties with certain oligarchs, including Berezovsky, who in recent years have been deprived of the chance to buy corrupt power with stolen money and apparently cannot accept this.
Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Putin's chief envoy to the European Union, who named no names but suggested to reporters in Helsinki that someone was killing government critics to discredit the Kremlin.
"I am far from being a champion of conspiracy theory. But it looks like we are facing a well-orchestrated campaign or a plan to consistently discredit Russia and its leader," he said.
Putin and other top Russian officials have repeatedly hinted of forces in the West that are out to undermine Russia.
After the slaying last month of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of the war in Chechnya, Putin said that "people who are hiding from Russian law enforcement have been hatching plans to sacrifice someone and create an anti-Russian wave in the world" — a possible reference to Berezovsky.
In Britain, Litvinenko was reunited with Berezovsky, now too living in self-imposed exile. Litvinenko wrote two books, the first, The FSB Blows up Russia (2001), implicated the security services in a series of apartment block bombings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people.
The attacks were blamed on Chechen rebels, but his book echoed fears of state involvement as a means of justifying the second war in Chechnya.
The other was The Criminal Group from the Lubyanka (2002). However, other accusations, such as that FSB agents trained al-Qaida operatives in Dagestan and were involved in the September 11 attacks, did little for his credibility.
Russian Mafia Behind Assassination
If I simply stood anywhere near Boris Berezovsky, I’m sure my hairwould fall out and my skin would turn yellow.
Alexander Litvinenko is simply the last in a
long line of stiffs associated with Boris, a line of corpses that
stretches back to the mid-nineties. One died from a mysterious nerve
toxin applied to the rim of his coffee cup.
If you want to know about Boris Berezovsky, ask former Forbes editor
Paul Klebnikov. Except you can’t, because he was blown away in 2004,
shortly after writing up Berezovsky’s bullet-ridden bio, ‘Godfather Of Crime’.
The Litvinenko case is notable for the disinformation spread by the
UK’s press, where the ‘facts’ have changed daily. Who makes this stuff
up? Why, story and pictures supplied by The Godfather’s PR Firm -
one with the sole aim of naming the killer as the Kremlin. Or might
that just be a smokescreen for a mafia hit? At the very least, it’s a
case of Pottinger calling the kettle black.
The media first linked Litvinenko with the poisoning of Yushchenko. How
did that come about? Well, PR just happened to contact John Henry, the
toxicologist, to put the Thallium rumour about. Shamefaced John
now regrets his diagnosis and admits he was misled about aspects of the
case. He stood near Boris and, as the Guardian put it today, got his
fingers burned.
The BBC reported radioactive metal objects lodged in Litvinov’s
intestines. Source? Potttinger PR. Litvinenko’s doctor subsequently
complained about the BBC’s unhelpful speculation. But, who cares about
facts as long as Putin gets maligned.
Litvinenko didn’t care much for facts either. He was a loose cannon who
would say anything and was paid handsomely by Boris for so doing. A
good example of one of Livinenko’s rants is an interview where he
blames the London 7/7 bombings on Putin.
According to Litvinenko, Yassar Arafat, Saddam and al-Zawahiri are all
KGB agents too. Litvinenko would give gullible journalists
declassified, old 1970s documents marked ’secret’ to prove his cred.
Boris bought him a half a million pound house in London. Good job.
The other political link the media has sought to forge is between
Litvinenko and Politovskaya. Well, there is a link, but not the one
generally publicised. Shortly before Paul Klebnikov was hit, he was
investigating the embezzlement of Russian funds
intended for reconstruction in Chechnya - a fatal line of enquiry
the investigative Politovskaya was also following Litvinenko’s rants
were published in the UK Chechen press.
An interesting link is between Berezovsky, Litvinenko and Zakayev, the
Chechen warlord, is that they were all mysteriously given asylum in the
UK as ‘needy human rights cases’. Yeah, right.
Why London needs a coterie of foreign criminals is beyond me, but they
appear to have some friends in very high places. Even Zhirinovsky has
asked the perfectly reasonable question ‘ why Cherie Blair
works in a law firm which is servicing our Russian thugs, Berezovsky included.’
It’s bad enough having Lord Bell influence the media on behalf of the
Mafia. Even more disturbing is that Scotland Yard did not investigate
the case until several days after the poisoning was reported. Does
Boris have friends there too? Not important. By this time Britain’s
media had secured a conviction. John Weaver/AFP
When you say that Putin "probably had Berezovsky in mind", discussing the
killings in Russia, you were mistaken. Putin DEFINITELY had Boris B. in
mind - just before the killings started Boris in one of his private
conversation with the journalist Vladimir Solovyov talked about the
neccessity of the "sacral sacrifice". After Anna Politkovskaya's murder
Berezovsky talked about the "ritual sacrifice" which would "cost V.Putin
a-plenty".