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Israel’s water theft

Mohammad Ghamlush, “the engineer heading the Wazzani river pumping systems, told Agence France Presse the Israeli army sabotaged the water pumps on the river last week and installed a pipe to pump hundreds of cubic meters to Israel.”

He said the Israeli army has installed two water pumps to transport water from the Wazzani river through two pipes, which run toward villages in Israel.

Ghamlush said the Israelis were pumping every day between 200 and 300 cubic meters of water from the Wazzani to Ghajar and to Israeli villages.

As for water stolen from the West Bank, there’s plenty of evidence for that. It is illegal under international law to retain land captured by warfare. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Shebaa Farms and Golan Heights is illegal whilst resisting the Israeli occupation is legal.

Of course, Israel doesn’t give two hoots about international law.

“However, soon afterward, the Israelis launched an unrelated attack on a West Bank Jordanian village, killing 53 people which came to be known as the Kibya massacre. As a result of the ensuing furor, on October 18, 1953, the Eisenhower administration made public its cutoff of aid to Israel. Eleven days later, under the pressure from the U.S. Zionist lobby and a pledge by Israel to suspend work on the diversion project, U.S. aid was resumed. (Taking Sides: America’s Secret Relations with a Militant Israel, by Stephen Green, William Morrow and Co., N.Y. 1984. “The 1953 Aid Cutoff: A Parable for Our Times,” pp. 76- 93.)

Israeli work on diverting the water of the Jordan River was only temporarily suspended — perhaps for as long as two years. By 1960, however, the diversion project — which came to be known as the National Water Carrier — was complete and in fact was the target of the PLO’s first (and unsuccessful) attack in 1964.

Jordan and Syria strongly protested Israel’s unilateral appropriation of their water because Israel’s diversion made local agricultural activity impossible.

Before the Israeli diversion, the U.S. plan apportioned 33% of Jordan River water for Israel’s use. As Stephen Green points out, the significance of this figure is that only 23% of the flow of the Jordan River originates in Israel. The Israelis, however, wanted more than 33%. Today, Israel takes virtually all of the Jordan River flow leaving only brackish, unusable water for the Syrians and Jordanians. Moreover, Israel’s diversion of the Jordan River water to the Mediterranean littoral and to the Negev, defies an important principle of international law regarding water use; namely that water should not be diverted from its catchment basin.”

“When Israel conquered the Golan Heights, they captured the headwaters of the Jordan and thus secured for themselves the greatest part of the flow of the Jordan River. Israel captured the final portion of the Jordan River flow in their 1982 invasion of Lebanon when they included as part of their self-declared “security zone” the Hasbani and Wazzani Rivers which arise in Lebanon and flow into the Jordan.”

“West Bank water not only makes up 30% of the water in Tel Aviv households but also is critical to preserving the pressure balance which keeps the salt water of the Mediterranean from invading the coastal aquifers.

Israel has permitted no new drilling of agricultural wells for water for the Palestinians in the territories and has permitted fewer than a dozen for domestic use. Moreover, the Israelis charge the Palestinians fees that are three times higher than they charge Israelis for water for domestic use (with even higher relative charges in Gaza).

As Sharif Elmusa points out: “[I]n terms of relative GNP per capita, Palestinians pay a minimum of fifteen times more than Israeli consumers — a phenomenal difference for water systems managed by the same company.” (“Dividing the Common Palestinian-Israeli Waters: An International Water Law Approach” in Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring 1993, No. 87, p. 63. See also note 11, p. 74.) ”

Here’s more history of Israel’s theft of water from the Jordan and the disastrous consequences.

“The main flow of the Jordan River has now been all but totally preempted by Israel’s diversions. All the headwaters’ flow is now collected by Israel and pumped out of the Jordan Basin, across the mountains, for use in irrigation or municipal water along the Mediterranean littoral of Israel.

The planning for diverting the Jordan River water by the Israelis started as early as the 1940s, but the very idea of capturing it is even more ancient. Much of the design of the civil works for capturing the Jordan River was completed in the 1950s, and they succeeded in diverting the entire volume of sweet water from the Upper Jordan by the late 1960s, when construction of the National Water Carrier system was completed. Pumps lift Jordan River water out of Lake Tiberias, also known as the Sea of Galilee, and convey it across the watershed. The diverted flow is then pumped to Israeli consumers on the Mediterranean coast and down into the northern Negev.”

“To make things even more difficult, there is another source of extra-boundary water that Israel diverts for its own use, albeit less obviously. The amount of water that Israel take from the underground of the West Bank is almost as important as the water diverted from the Upper Jordan Valley. This could surprise as the West Bank appears to be quite dry much of the year. In fact it receives more rain than the coastal plain, mostly in wintertime. As the soil is extremely porous much goes into the ground and thus into the aquifers underneath which is now pumped by the Israelis. This subsurface flow of water is a major contributor to Israel’s water balance, representing with its 400 mcm/y of water just over 20% of total Israeli consumption. This explains why Palestinians have not been allowed to dig new wells since 1967 and why their water consumption was constantly restricted by the occupier: the hegemony over the West Bank is critical for Israel’s water supply.”

The Wazzani River is in Lebanon.

Not Israel. Israel may think it owns all the water in the region, but it doesn’t.

“Withdrawing from some villages, the Israeli forces redeployed to other areas leaving behind them a trail of destruction, such as in Labbouneh, whose trees and horticulture have been totally destroyed by bulldozers. In addition, convoys of Israeli trucks are transporting Lebanese agricultural soil over the border to Israeli settlements and Israeli soldiers are building a water duct to carry water from the Wazzani river to Israel. The deployment of Lebanese and UNIFIL forces is being hampered by Israel’s refusal to hand over the maps indicating the land mines they planted prior to their withdrawal in 2000 and the cluster bombs they dropped on Lebanese sites during the last three days of the recent war. Moreover, reports about Israeli commando operations shifting the border away from the Blue Line into Lebanese territory have prompted the Lebanese government to file a complaint with the United Nations under the new regulations set up by Resolution 1701 which is supposed to safeguard Lebanon against violations of its territory.”

And more:

“There are no bilateral water agreements between Lebanon and Israel, but both states are bound by the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, which has NOT been formally ratified. It must be noted that even this convention does NOT give Israel the right to actually draw water from within Lebanese territory. It merely puts a loose restriction on Lebanon in its usage of international watercourses that have downflow across the boundary. The Convention merely says that the state from which the watercourse flows should make sure to use the water source on its territory in a reasonable manner. This does NOT mean that Israel has the right to extend pipes across its boundary and pump water into Israel!!! Such a thing would fall under a bilateral agreement, which does NOT exist between Lebanon and Israel. Water diversion from the territory of one country by a foreign country is illegal under international law.

In fact, Israel’s occupation of Al-Ghajar and theft of water is merely a measure of revenge at a Lebanese project that dates a few years back, in which the Wazzani waters were to be put into use as part of a project to provide water to south Lebanese villages with no water access (a perfectly legitimate, legal project), and over which Israel was throwing a tantrum. It also explains why Israel has been pressuring Lebanon for the past 3 decades to initiate economic ties with it. This would basically mean the beginning of bilateral agreements, of which water is deemed to be an inseparable part. Direct access to these water sources would ensure that Israel would cover at least 40% of its water needs, not taking into account the Litani.

Between 1982 and 2000 Israel was pumping water OUT of Lebanon. Actually there is a very interesting study on this, I think done by the Lebanese ministry of energy & water, in the form of a booklet, but I think it’s only available in Arabic (a colleague once showed it to me, but I have not been able to get my hands on it). Throughout the occupation, the government in Beirut was prevented from having access to the water in the occupied south, while Israel pumped millions of cubic meters of water into Israel. From 1978 (Operation Litani) onwards, Israel stopped publishing full water and cultivation figures. Instead, only loose estimates were made available. As a counter-proposal to the Johnston plan for an agreement on the allocation of water sources to Arab countries and Israel, Israel proposed the diversion of the waters of the Litani (which does not feed any of the water sources inside Israel). Of course, the Johnston proposal was in itself inherently racist, and though its aspirations were high on resolving water conflict in the M.E as a precedent to political settlement, it nevertheless was a big failure not merely technically but also theoretically, in that it did not look at the core sources of the conflict (dispossession and colonization), but rather focused entirely on arriving to an artificial solution (settling the Palestinians in the Sinai desert). If you can, you should check out an article by John K. Cooley titled ‘The War over Water’, in the journal Foreign Policy, No. 54. (Spring, 1984), pp. 3-26.

For example, the article points out that when they captured the dam and lake at Qirawn in June 1982 the Israelis immediately seized all the hydrographic charts and technical documents relating to the Litani and its installations. The Israelis were openly augmenting the flow of the Hasbani across the frontier into Israel by laying surface pipes to catch the run-off and other waters from the mountains and nearby springs. Moreover, a watchful American military observer claims to have seen Israelis burying pipes deep in a hillside near Marjâuyn [Marjaâayoun] after the Israeli incursion of 1978, indicating that the Israelis might be secretly siphoning water underground from the Marj Plain in southern Lebanon into Israel, without affecting the measured flow of the Litani. Such a diversion would trap the extensive underground aquifer, which is fed by seepage from both the Litani and the Hasbani rivers and by underground streams from the Mount Hermon region. [S]eismic soundings and surveys had been conducted at a spot on the Litani gorges called Deir Mimas – soundings that Lebanese Litani River Authority officials were certain had been undertaken to find the optimum place for the inlet of a diversion tunnel to be dug about three miles into Israel (p. 22-23).

Another interesting read is an article titled ‘Israel’s Water Policies’, by Uri Davis, Antonia E. L. Maks, and John Richardson, which appeared in the Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2. (Winter, 1980), pp. 3-31.”

And yet more:

According to a United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Israel was using water from the Lebanese Litani River, by means of an 11 mile tunnel it had drilled, as well as from Lebanons Wazzani springs (source: UPI). Note that no journalists can get to the area to confirm information about the siphoning of water and, indeed, such claims are contested (Aaron Wolf, in a U.N. publication, says there’s no way Israel would dream of stealing from the Litani).

But even whilst President Clinton and the Israeli government refused to negotiate over the right of return for Palestinian refugees, Israel imported over 100,000 Jews into the occupied West Bank. Those 100,000 use around the same amount of water that one million Palestinians do (something to do with swimming pools, say partisan analysts). As the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs says:

“Israel’s water economy is on the brink of a crisis.”

Related Links

“No Peace Without Water” – The Role of Hydropolitics in the Israel-Palestine Conflict

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Megaphonies

The Israeli government is ensuring it amplifies its peculiar views throughout the internet via the use of downloadable software. The megaphonies’ public face is Amir Gissin, who works for the Israeli government.

Doron Barkat, 29, in Jerusalem, spends long nights trawling the web to try to swing the debate Israel’s way. ‘When I see internet polls for or against Israel I send out a mailing list to vote for Israel,’ he said. ‘It can be that after 15 minutes there will be 400 votes for Israel.

It’s very satisfying. There are also forums where Lebanese and Israelis talk.;

Israel’s Foreign Ministry must avoid direct involvement with the campaign but is in contact with international Jewish and evangelical Christian groups, distributing internet information packs.

Amir Gissin, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s public relations director, said: “The internet’s become a leading tool for news, shaping the world view of millions.”

Interesting alternate views and commentary about the megaphonies are here and here

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Is Israel a Democracy?

Not in my view.

Here’s some Jewish voices who don’t think Israel is a democracy either.

Tim Wise:

Of course not: and yet the term is repeatedly used to describe Israel — as in ;the only democracy in the Middle East.’ This, despite the fact that Israel has no constitution; despite the fact that Israel is defined as the state of the Jewish people, providing special rights and privileges to anyone in the world who is Jewish and seeks to live there, over and above longtime Arab residents. This, despite the fact that Israel bars any candidate from holding office who thinks the country should be a secular, democratic state with equal rights for all. This, despite the fact that non-Jews are restricted in terms of how much land they can own, and in which places they can own land at all, thanks to laws granting preferential treatment to Jewish residents. This, despite that fact that even the Israeli Supreme Court has acknowledged the use of torture against suspected ‘terrorists’ and other ‘enemies’ of the Jewish state.

For some, it is apparently sufficient that Israel has an electoral system, and that Arabs have the right to vote in those elections (though just how equally this right is protected is of course a different matter). The fact that one can’t vote for a candidate who questions the special Jewish nature of the state, because such candidates can’t run for or hold office, strikes most as irrelevant: hardly enough to call into question their democratic credentials.

The Soviet Union also had elections, of a sort. And in those elections, most people could vote, though candidates who espoused an end to the communist system were barred from participation. Voters got to choose between communists. In Israel, voters get to choose between Zionists. In the former case, we recognize such truncated freedom as authoritarianism. In the latter case, we call it democracy.

If giving names like “Operation Enduring Freedom” or “Operation Just Cause” to deadly military offensives is not sufficient to indicate that the English language is dead, this should pretty well prove the point. If what we see in Israel is indeed democracy, then what does fascism look like?

I’m sorry, but I am over it. As a Jew, I am over it. And if my language seems too harsh here, that’s tough. Because it’s nothing compared to the sickening things said by Israeli leaders throughout the years. Like Menachem Begin, former Prime Minister who told the Knesset in 1982 that the Palestinians were ‘beasts walking on two legs.; Or former P.M. Ehud Barak, who offered a more precise form of dehumanization when he referred to the Palestinians as ‘crocodiles.’

Neve Gordon:

De-facto, then, Israel is not a democracy. One-third of the demos does not enjoy a series of basic rights which make up the pillars of liberal democracies. The state of Israel has existed for 55 years and has controlled the Palestinian population in the occupied territories without giving them political rights for two-thirds of this period. Accordingly, the notion that the occupation is provisional or temporary should, by now, be considered an illusion concealing the reality on the ground.

…

IDI found that only 77 percent of the Jewish population supports the statement that “democracy is the best form of government,” the lowest percentage (alongside Poland) among the 32 countries for which there is available data. Over half the population (56%) is of the opinion that “strong leaders can be more useful to the state than all the deliberations and laws.” Fifty percent concur that if there is a conflict between security interests and the preservation of the rule of law, the former should take precedence. And only 57 percent agree with the statement that violence should never be used to attain political objectives.

More than half of the Jews in Israel (53%) state that they are against full equality for the Arabs; 77 percent say there should be a Jewish majority on crucial political decisions; less than a third (31%) support having Arab political parties in the government; and the majority (57%) think that the Arabs should be encouraged to emigrate. Not only is the majority of the Jewish population against the provision of equal rights for Arab citizens, half of the Jews are even unwilling to face up to the fact that Palestinian citizens of Israel are discriminated against.

The courageous and tenacious Israeli, Tanya Reinhart, sums up Israel’s grave symptoms of political malaise:

Being against Israel is the best act of solidarity and compassion with the Jews that one can have. … The system of prisons that Israel is building is also a prison for Israelis. This small state is making itself the enemy of the entire Arab world and now the Muslim world. A state with this strategy does not have a future, so the solution for the Palestinians is also the solution for Israel.

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Zionists are not necessarily Jewish / Jews are not necessarily Zionists

Whilst Israel may be a fact on the ground, should its expansionist and oppressive activities be condoned by the international community? Israel continues to misappropriate more land from Palestinians, ignores UN resolutions, continues its illegal occupation of the West Bank, Shebaa Farms and Golan Heights and indulges in apartheidism within its paradoxically non-existent borders. Israel’s excesses do not benefit the countries of the west which support it, but make them a target for extremism.

Here’s a Jewish site which denounces Zionism.

“It must be stated explicitly that while not all Jews are Zionists, not all Zionists are Jews. The motives of some of these non-Jewish Zionists, e.g. Lord Balfour and General Smuts, are at least open to question. From the beginning of the Zionist movement, some of the most articulate and fervent Zionists have been Christian clergymen, especially “fundamentalists,” who hail Zionism as an important “religious” movement and welcome it as a fulfillment of prophecy. They also, and significantly, serve the cause of Zionism.

…

A former president of the World Zionist Organization has stated explicitly that a Zionist owes unqualified loyalty to the Zionist state and that, in the case of a conflict, the first loyalty of a Zionist must be to the Zionist state. According to Jewish law, however, a Jew owes allegiance and loyalty to the country of which he is a citizen, and, of course, no faithful Jews owes any loyalty or allegiance to the Zionist state which has been condemned by the foremost rabbis of our age. It is not my purpose to detail how Zionism should be dealt with. Let me state, however, that isolated or spontaneous acts against individuals or the mere adoption of resolutions in the UN or elsewhere are not effective means of bringing an end to Zionism. Let me state also that the battle against Zionism must be waged first, not on the shores of the Mediterranean, but in Zionism’s most powerful bastion — the USA.”

Some more Jewish sites which reject Zionism are:

http://www.nkusa.org/

“Zionism is not only a denial of the Torah’s fundamental basics concerning exile and redemption, but seeks to create tensions with other nations. This is particularly obvious in Palestine where the Israeli government has stolen from the Palestinian people the most basic human dignity of self determination. We decry, in the strongest of terms, the horrific Zionist atrocities which have just taken place in Bait Hanun, the ongoing oppression of Gaza, the subjugation of the Arab people in the West Bank and the entire Palestine. We will not forget what Olmert and his vigilantly State has perpetrated against Lebanon. The list goes endlessly on.”

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/ – this website documents how Zionism promotes anti-semitism.

“It has been the age-old intention of Zionism to intentionally stir up anti-Semitism anywhere possible, and even more commonly, to take advantage of any Jewish suffering anywhere in order to enhance its cause Indeed, hatred of Jews and Jewish suffering is the oxygen of the Zionist movement, and from the very beginning has been to deliberately incite hatred of the Jew and then, in feigned horror, use it to justify the existence of the Zionist state = this is, of course, Machiavellianism raised to the highest degree. Thus, the Zionists thrive on hatred and suffering of Jews, and seek to benefit thereby through keeping Jews in perpetual fear, causing them to ignore the true nature of Zionism, and instead to consider the Zionist state is their salvation.”

Tanya Reinhart has a convoluted liberal zionist view:

“Elmer: I want to talk to you about the political uses of anti-Semitism. Tel Aviv University has published a report entitled Anti-Semitism Worldwide wherein it claims: “The barriers between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have been lifted and the two merged.” What are your thoughts on conflating anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?

Reinhart: I haven’t seen the specific report, but the claim is of course very widespread. Usually the source of this claim that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism is Israeli propaganda, and its very well-oiled branches of the pro-Israel lobby across the world.

The supposition in this claim is that if you look at Israel’s behaviour, it is essentially alright: it is a country defending itself, and it is doing what is necessary to defend itself – there isn’t anything peculiar about it. Therefore there must be some hidden reason why people criticize Israel and object to Israel’s acts in the Territories, and what could that reason be if not anti-Semitism? The reason that it is picked on is because it can work – given that there was, and is, anti-Semitism, given the horrible history of the Jewish people, people do have fears of anti-Semitism.

But I don’t like the term anti-Zionism to define opposition to Israeli policies, because Zionism – the way it is perceived by most Israelis – is that Jews are entitled to a State of their own. It is the liberation and self-determination of the Jewish people motivated by the Holocaust and their fate in exile.

The trouble is not exactly with Zionism, but with the Israeli leadership and the way Zionism has been executed, based on ethnic cleansing from the very start. I believe it was possible to reach the same goal [of Jewish self-determination] with much less loss and sacrifice for the Palestinian people.

It is not part of having your own state that it must be based on striving to grab more and more of your neighbour’s land, or depriving minorities of their rights – this is the Israeli military system’s implementation of the idea of Zionism. So I believe what we should say is that we are against Israel – meaning Israel’s acts and the policy of its leadership, and against the Occupation, and leave the question of Zionism aside.”

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Who dun it? Litvinenko

Was it an assassination or suicide? If an assassination, who had the most to gain from Litvinenko’s death?

Britain’s intelligence agencies last night claimed that the poisoning of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko bore the hallmarks of a “state-sponsored” assassination.

A senior Whitehall official told The Times that confirmation that the former Russian spy, who had become a British citizen, had been poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 and other evidence so far not released pointed to the murder being carried out by foreign agents.

…

Cobra, the Cabinet’s emergency security committee, met yesterday after toxicologists confirmed that the 43-year-old former KGB colonel had a large dose of alpha radiation in his body. The committee chaired by John Reid, the Home Secretary, considered the risk to the public after the discovery of radioactive material in a Central London sushi bar and at the Millennium Hotel, near the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, where Mr Litvinenko held meetings on November 1. Radioactive traces were also found at his family home in Muswell Hill, North London.

The quantity of polonium-210 used could only have been obtained from a nuclear instillation, scientific experts said.

…

Security sources said that MI5 and MI6 were engaged in a “joint enterprise” with Scotland Yard in what was “an unprecedented death” in Britain. Anti-terror squad detectives refused to say where the deadly element was placed, or in what quantities they found it at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly or the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel, where the dissident met two Russians on November 1.

…

Mr Putin interrupted preparations for an EU/Russia summit in Helsinki to deny involvement. He criticised Mr Litvinenko’s entourage, the media, the British secret service and even the Italian Mafia. He claimed that the letter accusing him of being “barbaric and ruthless” was a forgery concocted by Mr Litvinenko’s wife and father: “If this note was produced before the death of Mr Litvinenko, I wonder why it was not published when he was alive?”

COMMENTS FROM THE OLD HC BLOG:

technologist:

“quantity of polonium-210 used could only have been obtained from a nuclear installation”

As far as I know, one can buy about 10% of lethal dose of Po-210 online for $30-70. I therefore doubt taht a nuclear reactor is necessary. More likely, KGB used a credit card.

Fringe:

Interesting 🙂 thanks for that insight.

The plot thickens with a connection to Israeli ex Yukos CEO Nevlin. Nevlin is wanted by the Russian authorities.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/792436.html

“Mr Lugovoi said there was no Vladimir at the meeting, which he said lasted between 20 minutes and half an hour. He identified the second Russian as Dmitry Kovtun, a business associate whom he said he had introduced to Mr Litvinenko the previous month.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=KWBSCAZDEKIZRQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/11/24/npoison224.xml

“Dmitry Kovtun, Managing Partner, is responsible for business development, company strategy and marketing. Prior to joining VFBS Dmitry worked at Gazprom and the Alfa Group.”

http://www.vfbs.ru/team.htm

More about Nevzlin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Nevzlin

About Litvinenko’s career:

“By 1997 his department, ostensibly in charge of the fight against organised crime, was, in his words, “responsible for illegal punishments or so-called extra-legal executions of “unsuitable” businessmen, politicians and other public figures. In parallel, the department blackmailed the same targets for funds.””

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=X5SDP41MSK5KDQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/11/25/npoison225.xml

xcellent commentary and revelations here:

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/death-of-alexander-litvinenko.html

Berezovsky in the past has implicated himself as desiring the overthrow of the democratically elected Russian government by force.

And

“Mr Berezovsky, as we all know, is Machiavelli’s Prince in living form, a notorious manipulator who once pulled the strings at the Kremlin.”

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/litvinenko-poisoning-continued-it-pays.html

Scaramella is a shadowy character whose previous pronouncements have proved unreliable and odd.

As well

“The finger of blame has been pointed at the Russian government without a shred of evidence and when there are other parties who wish to see regime change in that country who might possess the means, motives and willing candidates to mount a risky smear campaign against Vladimir Putin.
A carefully orchestrated public relations campaign appears to have taken place, with the assistance of one the UK’s leading PR men; a man who appears to have had a long and close association with a person who wishes the democratically elected government of a friendly foreign power overthrown by force.”

“Mr Scaramella, who is involved in an Italian parliamentary inquiry into Russian secret service activity, said they met because he wanted to discuss an e-mail he had received.”

“By the same token Scaramella presumably had no access either to Litvinenko’s home or to the hotel where he met Lugovoi.
Of course neither might be ruled out as members of a conspiracy – but that’s a slightly different thing from being a poisoner.
Which leaves the question – who did have access to Litvinenko’s home? And to the sushi bar? And to the hotel? ”

Berezovsky owned the house in which Litvinenko lived.

“There are few trails which do not lead back to Mr. Berezovsky. The 60 year old- who is wanted in Russia on charges of fraud – finances a number of Russian factions who want Mr. Putin out of the Kremlin.
Nowhere is this more evident than in a quiet, residential street in North London.
On one side of the road is the £500,000 Litvinenko family home, where the former KGB man lives with his wife and 12 year old son.
Almost opposite is the £700,000 home of Akhmed Zakayev, who was one deputy prime minister of Chechnya and has been granted political asylum here.
Zakayev and Litvinenko would once have been deadly enemies but now, united in opposition to Mr. Putin, they are close friends.
The Land Registry shows that both their homes are owned by companies based in the British Virgin Islands – both of which are believed to be controlled by Mr. Berezovsky, who has much to gain by their occupants’ anti-Putin stance.
He gains, too, from the claims that Mr. Putin tried to kill Mr. Litvinenko. To gain maximum benefit, Mr. Berezovsky has hired Margaret Thatcher’s former chief spin doctor Lord Bell to handle the publicity.”

Another involved fellow:

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/litvinenko-poisoning-continued-it-pays.html

“And the ubiquitous Alex Goldfarb, so often described as Litvinenko’s ‘close friend’, is in fact the chairman of Berezovsky’s Civil Liberties Foundation (I would post a direct link to its website, but I can’t find one), who once indicated that he was ‘not sick and tired of being Berezovsky’s right hand’.”

Then there’s the Bush connection:

“Oddly one cannot find any reference to any comment from either Berezovsky, Goldfarb or Litvinenko in relation to Berezovsky’s having been declared persona non grata in Latvia after he visited the country – allegedly as a ‘business adviser’ to Ignite Learning, the educational software company run by Neil Bush; brother of George W. of that ilk.”

“On January 26 2006, Agence France Presse quoted Boris Berezovsky as follows –
“President Putin violates the constitution and any violent action onthe opposition’s part is justified today, and that includes takingpower by force, which is exactly what I am working at,” the oligarch, looking vibrant despite five years in self-imposed exile, told AFPat his Piccadilly office.
For the past 18 months, “we have been preparing to take power by force in Russia,” he said, claiming he would finance this with a fortune that had “tripled” over the last five years to billions of dollars.”
There is no reason why this man’s claim to be planning the overthrow of a friendly foreign power’s democratically elected government should not be taken seriously.
He might have much to gain by smearing Vladimir Putin for having ordered the attack on Alexander Litvinenko.
At the very least his asylum status should be reviewed.
And one must ask – given their closeness to Berezovsky, have Goldfarb, who appears to be an American citizen, Litvinenko, now a British citizen, and Zakayev, like Berezovsky a recipient of the United Kingdom’s asylum, all been aware of and perhaps involved in his parapolitical plans?”

“Until recently, news stories about the international backers for Neil Bush’s firm Ignite! have focused on Taiwanese businessmen, and Middle East billionaires, such as Defense Minister and Crown Prince of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.[92] But it was a surprise to learn in September 2005 that “Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky was in Riga along with Neil Bush, the brother of the U.S. president, to discuss an educational project with Latvian businessmen.”[93] In an interview with Interfax, “Berezovsky pointed out that he is one of the shareholders of Ignite! Inc., an educational software company. U.S. President George W. Bush’s brother Neil Bush is the company’s chairman and chief executive.”[94]”

“Much remains to be learned about Far West, Ltd., its personnel, and the American firm which co-founded it. Reportedly it was founded in 1998; and already had Surikov and Saidov as directors when they attended the meeting in Khashoggi’s villa in July 1999.

I suspect myself that the meeting did indeed have to do with destabilizing Russia, as Dunlop claimed. But I believe also that the group at the meeting was more concerned with facilitating drug-trafficking than with strengthening the Kremlin. I believe further that they also discussed the Russian presence in Kosovo, and the imminent increase in the flow of Afghan drugs through Kosovo.”

“Georgian tycoon, close associate of Boris Berezovskii. Cf. Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin, 262: “Often Berezovskii acted in Chechnya through Badri Patarkatsishvili, the Logovaz partner who, according to the Russian security services, had long served as the company’s primary intermediary with organized crime groups.” Klebnikov reports (161, cf. 331) that Moscow police heard in early 1995 from a gangster that “he had been approached by Berezovsky’s aide, Badri, with a contract for Listyev’s assassination.” (In February 1995 Listyev, the director of Russia’s most important TV network ORT, was shot dead in his apartment building.)”

http://www.satyacenter.com/news-alt_news-drugs-911

“Forum.msk.ru belongs to a group of former officers and agents of the Soviet military intelligence (GRU) whose leader is said to be Ret. Leutenant-Colonel Vladimir Ilyich Filin. The group’s business face is the “consulting” agency Far West, LLC (formerly Far West, Ltd). It controls a number of periodicals, including the “nationalist” weekly Zavtra (chief editor Alexander Prokhanov) and the Moscow Institute for Globalization Studies whose director is the prominent Russian leftist Boris Kagarlitsky. In the last three years this group, which also includes the former Luthunian defense minister Audrius Butkevicius, has been alleged in press to be an organized criminal society, involved in narcotrafficking, illegal arms trade, ties with Western and Saudi intelligence, and subversive activities against Russia. The main sources of these allegations were the former officer of Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) Sergei Petrov (aka Serge Rodin) and the officer of Russian military counterintelligence Armen Sarkisian who in the spring of 2005 provided over fifty pages of information on the activities and the background of the group’s leaders to the investigative group burtsev.ru. Petrov was killed in South Africa in January 2004. Sarkisian was killed and his counterintelligence unit dissolved in July 2005. Since then several anonymous author(s) have occasionally used forum.msk.ru to post bits of information on the activities of Filin’s group. The internal evidence of this information suggests that it may come from some elements in Russian secret services or/and the group’s competitors.”

http://www.left.ru/burtsev/ops/filinnervous.phtml

Putin does not benefit. Boris Abramovich Berezovsky does and so does Israel, which has been itching to unleash American firepower on Iran, and has only been held back by Putin.

What evidence is there that Putin has done anything illegal? None. In fact Putin has stood up for the law – international law – when Britain and its master the US rode roughshod over it, the end result of which has been the utter destruction and disintegration of the most advanced Arab state, 650,000 of whose citizens have been murdered by the Western criminals who have the chutzpah to stand in judgment over Russia without a shred of evidence.

Now let’s talk about Boris Berezovsky and his top – and now mercifully dead – henchman Alex Litvinenko. Forbes magazine’s Moscow editor Paul Klebnikov, the world’s leading expert on Yeltsin-era Russian robber barons like Berezovsky, wrote a book called GODFATHER OF THE KREMLIN: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia. Klebnikov described how Berezovsky colluded with the Chechen mafia to take control of the capital and the Yeltsin government, sometimes fighting street battles with the Russian mafia alliance trying to drive the Chechens out.

He showed how Berezovsky helped start the second Chechen war by financing Basayev’s wahhabi terrorist army through a money-for-hostages deal inspired by Ollie North’s shenanigans with Iran and Hezbollah.

Litvinenko was Putin’s appointee to the FSB directorate charged with preventing the infiltration of mafiosi like Berezovsky into Russian intelligence. Litvinenko instead ensured that Berezovsky had full access to the FSB, and finally resigned when his cover was blown, immediately afterward becoming Berezovsky’s employee.

Berezovsky was at that time trying to acquire complete control of Russia’s Channel One TV station to complete his full-spectrum supremacy over Russian media. One man, ORT’s (Channel One) director and popular anchorman Vlad Listyev, stood against him. Berezovsky had him shot. Litvinenko then became “head of security” at ORT.

Paul Klebnikov, the Forbes aditor, was painstakingly gathering the facts about this latest crime of the mafia boss Berezovsky when he too was shot.

The Chechen warlord who ordered his murder – by Chechen hit men – was a former Chechen mafia leader-turned-terrorist who had worked for Berezovsky as a “security chief” and as a manager of one of his car dealerships.

Litvinenko was the guy that Berezovsky recruited from the FSB so that he wouldn’t have to call the Chechen slimebags and haggle over the hit contracts himself.”

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1957385,00.html

“Mikhail Chernoy’s brother Lev has been a prime target of the Swiss investigation into the Russian Mafiya since he attempted to take over the Russian aluminum industry—allegedly with the assistance of Marc Rich. Also, according to Robinson, Swiss investigators believe that Lev Chernoy has ties with the Mega-linked “Russian oligarch” Boris Berezovsky, who is accused of siphoning $200 million in hard currency out of Aeroflot accounts and into Switzerland. Both Chernoy and Berezovsky are suspected of involvement with the Bank of New York, which laundered billions of dollars in hard currency and state assets out of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. According to Robinson, the person behind many of these murky deals was Likud campaign contributor Grigori Loutchansky. A recent international law enforcement probe of the Bank of New York operations has turned up evidence that Marc Rich was a silent partner of Loutchansky’s in the Nordex operations, which started out as a KGB money-laundering front in the late 1980s.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1113.htm

http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=17653

“Interpol Unblocks Warrants
23rd May 2006
The Associated Press

PARIS – Interpol has backed Russian arrest warrants for self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky and several other criminal suspects wanted in Russia, Itar-Tass reported.

Deputy Interior Minister Andrei Novikov said Interpol’s move would provide Russia with “additional arguments for nations giving shelter to those who are being sought,” Itar-Tass reported late Thursday.

An official at Interpol’s Paris headquarters said in a telephone interview that the agency had just ended the legal review of its so-called “red notices” related to Russia – Interpol notifications to member countries that the country in question has issued an arrest warrant.

The legal review of the notices, conducted following a legal challenge, has concluded that there are no problems with them, said the Interpol official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said that the hold on the notices was therefore lifted. The official would not say on what basis the Russian warrants had been challenged.

Itar-Tass said the Interpol red notices referred to Berezovsky, his associate Yuly Dubov, Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin, Yukos chief legal expert Mikhail Gololobov and Menatep bank department head Natalya Chernysheva.”

The media is painting Putin black – no mention that Nevzlin has been wanted by Interpol in today’s Times story.

“A dossier drawn up by Alexander Litvinenko on the Kremlin’s takeover of the world’s richest energy giant will be given to Scotland Yard today as police investigate the former KGB spy’s secret dealings with some of Russia’s richest men.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Litvinenko travelled to Israel just weeks before he died to hand over evidence to a Russian billionaire of how agents working for President Putin dealt with his enemies running the Yukos oil company.

He passed this information to Leonid Nevzlin, the former second-in-command of Yukos, who fled to Tel Aviv in fear for his life after the Kremlin seized and then sold off the $40 billion (£21 billion) company.

Mr Nevzlin told The Times that it was his “duty” to pass on the file. “Alexander had information on crimes committed with the Russian Government’s direct participation,” he said.

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

Investigators have told The Times that Mr Litvinenko had apparently uncovered “startling” new material about the Yukos affair and what happened to those opposing the forced break-up of the company.

Several figures linked with Yukos are reported to have disappeared or died in mysterious circumstances while its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and others have been jailed.

Originally it was Mr Litvinenko’s vocal opposition to President Putin’s rule that led to accusations of Russia’s secret service involvement in his death, but police are investigating whether he made enemies through his links with a number of oligarchs.

Detectives involved in what they admit is one of the most complicated inquiries Scotland Yard has faced say that they are working through Mr Litvinenko’s formidable list of friends and foes, which includes some of the world’s wealthiest men.

One figure close to the investigation said: :At present we have a bewildering number of theories and names put to us, and we must establish some firm evidence.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-2473385,00.html

Does Litvinenko’s death give Berezovsky & Nevzlin an opportunity to exonerate themselves? How will the police authenticate the documents given to them by Nevzlin?

Planted, accidental, or a definite clue to the villain?

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1958709,00.html

“Detectives have found traces of polonium 210 at the London offices of the exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, it was revealed last night.

…

Sources confirmed that traces of polonium 210 had been found at the address. Mr Berezovsky, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, refused to comment yesterday on the revelations. “I don’t want to comment anything about it,” he told the Guardian. “I don’t know anything about police at my office.””

First he wasn’t, and now he is.

More info on this colourful individual here:

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/11/19/20439/209

Make sure to read the comments in the above link – lots of tasty stuff about Litvinenko’s past.

http://ukipuncovered.blogspot.com/

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/death-of-alexander-litvinenko.html

It’s looking more and more to me like a Russian mafia plot set up to discredit Putin.

Lots of motives and lots of characters with shadowy track records of fraud and murder.

http://www.eurotrib.com/comments/2006/11/19/20439/209/16?mode=alone;showrate=1#16

“Why Litvinenko is being called a “spy”? NPR today also used “spy”. He was working as investigator in Organized Crime Division of FSB (same as FBI investigator in the US context) where he got via the prison guard service.

At some point he seemed to realize that his career in FSB was over, as, among other things, he was under Internal Affairs investigation for beating and torture of detainees, warrantless searches and explosive trafficking allegations. That’s when he participated in political combination of Berezovsky, who at that time was one of the people effectively running the country. Berezovsky was concerned that some of the branches of the government were not enough under his control and manufactured a scandal that should have brought FSB in line.

Litvinenko and few of his fellow officers called the press conference alledging that his FSB management ordered a hit on Berezovsky. Since then courts recognized his allegations as false, but the end result was that after Berezovsky’s talk with Yeltsin Organized Crime Division was disbanded and FSB got a new head (Putin, then little known).

Litvinenko got his 1 million $ for this press conference (as alledged by the officers who participated in this conference with him), was arrested following Internal Affairs investigation results and the moment he was released left for UK, where he got political (???) asylum. Courts eventually recognized him as guilty but free on probation, so at the moment he is not even wanted in Russia.

I really doubt that he was a “friend” of Politkovskaya, and contrary to NPR reporting, Goldfarb is also not a “friend”, but a trobleshooter lawer for Berezovsky and also the source of this story and few of the stories below.

BTW, poison and conract hits, real or imagined, keeps poping up quite regulary around Berezovsky.

Allegation of imminent poisoning of Berezovsky by (you guessed it) FSB was one of reasons UK courts decided not to extradite Berezovsky to Russia in 2003; “Evidence” was provided by Litvinenko. I’m wondering how dependant Berezovsky’s de-facto immunity from prosecution on what Litvinenko done or knows.

In the same 2003 Berezovsky and Litvinenko “stopped” contract hit on Putin. Alleged would be killers were convwniently some of the same officers that participated with Litvinenko in that press conference back in Russia. They were arrested by UK law enforcement, refused (as I understand, regular in such cases in UK) political asylum and went back to Russia.

Politkovskaya was “poisoned” in 2004, too;

Yushenko was poisoned when Berezovsky became interested in his campaign. 2 years later and Yushenko being the president, the crime (?) still not solved.

Anyone remembers story of presidential run by Ivan Rybkin? The guy was scared to hell, and did not look like it was due to FSB or Putin.”

“Italian reports said that Mr Scaramella had made regular visits to the FSB in Moscow and was a close associate of Viktor Kolmogorov, deputy head of the FSB.

Mr Scaramella claims that his Moscow visits were connected to his work for the Mitrokhin Commission, and that far from working for the FSB he is as much a potential target as Mr Litvinenko.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2462162,00.html

“The shoot out in March 2004 had hilarious developments for Guzzanti’s ridiculous Mitrokhin commission. Scaramella, a self-styled “professor” later claimed that he was actually checking out an antenna which he alleged was to be used by the evil Ruskies to contaminate the Bay of Naples by setting off a dozen atomic weapons (apparently without a nuclear explosion) that had been dumped there by a Russian submarine. Supposedly this event would be blamed on the NATO. The Russians thought the accusations were a bad joke.

The four camorra members involved in the shoot out were actually involved in transporting weapons. They did not shoot at Scaramella to take him out but apparently shot at the two penitentiary cops who were there to meet Scaramella for reasons as yet unknown. One of the members of the camorra was wounded and quickly arrested. The arms were sequestered.

As far as the Mitrokhin Commission goes, what can I say. You can download the audiences on the parliament’s site and sit back for riotous laughing. Guzzanti is best known for having sired the two comics and political satirists, Sabina and Paolo. He does his best to compete with them but is basically a hallucinated psychotic with a strong tendency to go into fits of obscenity. It’s no wonder he’s a senator for Berlusconi’s personal political entity.

As for Scaramella, he is along the lines of Rocco Martino (Niger forgeries) and Igor Marini (Telekom Serbija), con artists that work around the secret services. He has a track record of putting together unsubstantiated claims of Russian nuclear weapons traffic. Thanks to Guzzanti his claims end up in the papers as the usual scare tactics.”

http://www.eurotrib.com/comments/2006/11/19/20439/209/2?mode=alone;showrate=1#2

“Security analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, who met Mr Litvinenko several times, said the media focus on the Kremlin was “lazy” and bore the hallmarks of a John Le Carre novel.

“We have to put this in a historical context,” he said.

“Litvinenko’s last job within the FSB was heading up the anti-corruption unit and he discovered a lot of corruption there and made a lot of enemies within the KGB.”

When Yeltsin broke the KGB into different agencies such as the FSB and the SVR, the majority of its members stayed on but some went into the Duma and a third group went into legitimate business, he said.

But a “murky bunch” went into what was known as the Russian mafia.

Sophisticated poison

“My own belief, and this is speculation, is that it’s not inconceivable that Anna Politkovskaya in her search for murderers within the Russian bank system discovered the contract killings were these former KGB people.

“She was killed and if Litvinenko indeed was privy to her investigations then it could well be that they will emerge as his killers.”

Although the sophisticated nature of the poison suggested it could have come from the state, there was no motive, he said.

The case has caused huge interest in the UK
“There was no benefit to Putin or Russian intelligence services to have a highly publicised operation like this.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6180432.stm

“Since 1995, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has maintained a database on the illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive materials.

As of last year, the database contained 827 confirmed incidents. Of these, 224 incidents involved nuclear materials and 516 involved radioactive materials.

The IAEA said it had not received confirmation of polonium finding its way into this underground market, but there have been a number of unconfirmed reports.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6190144.stm

Maybe as you say the clumsy footprints left by the material were intentional. Yet if I were Miss Marple, I would be casting a very close eye over Berezovsky (Litvinenko’s landlord and long time associate with a very shady past and plenty of motive and contaminated) and Nevzlin (associate of Berezovsky, also with plenty of motive). I would also be asking how Scaramella (associate of Berezovsky) had become contaminated.

“British health authorities and the police have said polonium 210 cannot be transmitted through the skin and is not harmful unless it is swallowed, breathed in or passed through an open wound.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/world/europe/29spy.html?em&ex=1165035600&en=455087075151ebe4&ei=5087%0A

Curiouser and curiouser.

Scaramella’s lawyer said that since his client was poisoned, he could not be a suspect.

Yet now it seems he hasn’t had a toxic dose.

Additionally –

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2473384,00.html

“La Repubblica yesterday published interviews that it conducted last year with Mr Litvinenko and Evgeny Limarev, another former Russian intelligence officer, in which both men claimed that Mr Scaramella used his status within the commission to run a shadowy parallel intelligence operation with right-wing aims.”

Limarev was the source of the hit list email – the discussion of which was the purpose of the sushi bar lunch.

And there’s a Cheney connection to Scaramella:

“[La Repubblica Nov. 26-27]

A CHENEY CONNECTION EMERGES IN THE LITVINENKO CASE.

Yevgeni Limarev, a former FSB official whom Mario Scaramella indicated was his source for the story that Litvinenko was on an FSB hit list, gave an interview to Italy’s La Repubblica denying Scaramella’s version and adding a few elements on Scaramella’s networks.

Scaramella, Limarev says, has boasted connections to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

Scaramella works for the Washington-based Environmental Crime Prevention Program (ECPP), which, according to Limarev, “has institutional support in military intelligence.”

Limarev reports that Scaramella told him that

“they could rely on Dick Cheney’s team at the White House.”

“It is enough for you to know, Mario and [Italian parliament Mytrokhin committee head] Guzzanti told me, that behind the ECPP there are Italians and Americans, for security reasons. Once in a while, they talked, in my presence, about Dick Cheney, but I never saw Cheney papers.

“They explained to me that ECPP acts officially as an environmental protection agency, and a section of non-official activities whose organizational level does not include offices, base, protocols, etc., financed with tens of million dollars partially in Italy (through the Carabinieri environmental protection fund, they told me once) and partially through the Republic of San Marino-based holding, Finbroker.”

Through the ECPP, Scaramella tried to involve both Limarev and Litvinenko into fabricating dossiers against Italian anti-war politicians, which were channelled to the Parliament Mytrokhin investigating committee.

Limarev mentions Prime Minister Romano Prodi and current Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema as top targets,
but the list includes also several leaders of the PdCI, Rifondazione, and Green parties.

Scaramella tried to get from both Litvinenko and Limarev dossiers proving that these politicians had been KGB agents.

Allegedly, when Litvinenko and Limarev realized that Scaramella and his boss Guzzanti were not interested in harming Putin, they withdrew their collaboration.”

Interestingly

“International ‘security consultant’ Mario Scaramella, who joined Litvinenko for the now infamous clandestine meeting in a London sushi bar, headed an organisation which tracked dumped nuclear waste, including Soviet nuclear missiles left over from the Cold War.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976850175

and even more background on Litvinenko’s recent activities

“Alexander Litvinenko may have been killed after a deal that went wrong with associates involved in the ruthless world of Russian business.

According to security sources, investigators are looking at the former spy’s dealings with Russian businessmen involved in the lucrative energy sector and the shadowy world of private security. “We are looking at a very long list of Mr Litvinenko’s friends and foes since he has been in London,” one source said.

The list includes exotic figures ranging from billionaire businessmen, former Kremlin spies and KGB agents to underworld bosses.

In the six years that he was in Britain, Litvinenko appeared to have acquired a formidable collection of friends and enemies. Although he described himself as a journalist, Litvinenko tried unsuccessfully to muscle in on several lucrative business deals with Russians.

On the day that he fell ill he was attempting to broker a gas and oil exploration deal involving a British conglomerate that he claimed to represent. He was envious of the money that many of his former colleagues were making.

He also had talks about providing trained personal protection guards recruited from Russia, and claimed to represent a number of British interests wanting bilateral deals with Russian investors.

Police will look at investigations that his friends say he claimed to be involved in at the time of his death, including smuggling rings for nuclear material and prostitutes.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2482861,00.html

[Corriere della Sera, wires Nov. 29]

ITALIAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE LITVINENKO-SCARAMELLA CONNECTION.

The Parliament Intelligence Oversight Committee (Copaco) has announced hearings with Interior Minister Giuliano

Amato and Scaramella’s boss, Sen. Paolo Guzzanti, for next week, to “make clarity on a story which has assumed

grotesque aspects,” said Copaco chairman Claudio Scajola.

The Committee wants to find out the truth about the “permanent working group” led by Mario Scaramella and

Guzzanti under the cover of the former Mytrokhin Parliament Investigating Committee.

As reported by former FSB official Yevgeni Limarev in a newspaper interview, Scaramella and Guzzanti boasted of

having ties to Dick Cheney.

In the meantime, Scaramella has again been accused of being the person who poisoned Litvinenko.

Yuri Felshtinsky, co-author of Litvinenko’s book “Blowing up Russia”, told the Sun:

“When I talked to Alexander around 12 November about who poisoned him … he was sure at this time it was

Mario. He was telling me that he was in a scheme.”

Scaramella was interrogated in London on Wednesday as a witness by Scotland Yard and found to be not

radioactive.

[Source: Ha’aretz, Nov.25,2006]

ALEXANDER LITVINENKO WAS IN ISRAEL SEVERAL MONTHS AGO WHERE HE MET EXILED RUSSIAN OLIGARCH LEONID NEVZLIN.

Nevzlin was a shareholder in the Yukos oil company and is wanted in Russia for tax evasion, budget

irregularities, and for connection to the murder of the mayor of a Siberian town.

Nevzlin claims Litvinenko gave him documents containing classified information possibly damaging to the

leadership in Russia.

He claims he turned the documents over to the British Metropolitan Police.

[Source: Russian and other media]

Nov. 30–GAIDAR’S ILLNESS FEEDS FRENZY OVER POISONINGS.

Former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, the radical liberal economist who presided over “shock therapy” in

the early 1990s, collapsed during a conference presentation in Ireland last Friday, Nov. 24.

Hospitalized in intensive care in Dublin, after vomiting blood, Gaidar was then flown to Moscow and is being

treated at an undisclosed hospital.

While the Irish hospital initially put out that his symptoms appeared to be related to diabetes, today Gaidar’s

press secretary said that doctors consider them the result of poisoning by an “unnatural” substance, i.e., not

food poisoning.

Media rushed to make connecto links to the Litvinenko case, insofar as ex-KGB man Lugovoy, who met Litvinenko

in early November, was Gaidar’s former security chief. But, no official diagnosis of Gaidar’s condition has

been announced.

Yesterday, he was well enough to take a phone call from President Vladimir Putin.

Anatoli Chubais, Gaidar’s political ally (though on good terms with Putin, as CEO of the national power

company), said yesterday that Gaidar had nearly died, according to RIA Novosti.

He suggested that the incident was part of an attack on the regime, saying that, “The deadly triangle —

Politkovskaya, Litvinenko, and Gaidar — would have been very desirable for some people, who are seeking an unconstitutional and forcible change of power in Russia.”

“Boris Abramovich Berezovsky is a Russian Jewish billionaire who was head of Russian National Security under Boris Yeltsin. When Putin came to power he opened investigations into Berezovsky’s business activities, including money laundering. Berezovsky responded by fleeing to the UK where he was granted political asylum.
Boris Abramovich Berezovsky

Berezovsky has been accused of money laundering by the French authorities.

Berezovsky either holds or has held, Israeli citizenship.

In its Dec. 30, 1996 issue, Forbes Magazine published an extensive article called “Godfather of the Kremlin?,” in which it charged Berezovsky with responsibility for the 1995 killing of popular television journalist Vladimir Listev. The magazine also accused Berezovsky of having numerous mafia connections and embezzling $50 million collected by his company from thousands of Russians who purchased AVVA shares-allegedly to start producing a new passenger car.

Boris Berezovsky has admitted that he is plotting the violent overthrow of the Russian government and was “warned” by Jack Straw, (who was subsequently sacked from his position as British Foreign Secretary) not to “abuse” his asylum status in Britain. Putin has demanded that Berezovsky be extradited to Russia. Blair had refused to do so.

Boris Berezovsky’s lawyer is Alexander Goldfarb. Goldfarb helped Berezovsky secure asylum in the UK. Goldfarb is a Russian dissident who now holds American citizenship.Goldfarb was also a close friend of Litvinenko. Litvinenko’s death bed accusation that Putin was being his killer was publicly read out by Goldfarb in a recent BBC broadast. Goldfarb claims that the document was dictated to him by Alexander Litvinenko. ”

http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs20061124_LitvinenkoByWayOfDeception.php

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c1eb2990-8158-11db-864e-0000779e2340.html

The rabbit hole does indeed go deep.

“Do Berezovsky’s dual loyalties really matter? Yes. In the realm of global dominance, Israel’s interests and Russia’s are considerably divergent. It is in Israel’s interests to bring to power a regime in Russia friendly to Israel, rather than the current one under Putin, which Israeli leaders feel is supportive of its enemies. Not long ago, for example, Putin met with Syrian leaders an action highly disturbing to Israel.

Having an Israeli citizen at the highest levels of the Russian government is ideal, from Israel’s point of view. In Berezovsky they had such a man. The Jerusalem Post article mentioned above is revealing. It describes Berezovsky as “the Godfather of the Oligarchs’ and Kingmaker of Russia’s Politics'” and reports Berezovsky’s statement that “Putin’s Russia is dangerous for Israel.” Berezovsky goes on to assert that Putin “supports terror” in the Middle East through Russia’s previous relations with Iraq and current relations with Iran. [7]”

http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02172005.html

A hero in the pariah state and a wanted crim elsewhere.

““You can get it all over the place,” said William Happer, a physicist at Princeton who has advised the United States government on nuclear forensics. “And it’s a terrible way to go.”

Today, polonium 210 can show up in everything from atom bombs, to antistatic brushes to cigarette smoke, though in the last case only minute quantities are involved. Iran made relatively large amounts of polonium 210 in what some experts call a secret effort to develop nuclear arms, and North Korea probably used it to trigger its recent nuclear blast.

Commercially, Web sites and companies sell many products based on polonium 210, with labels warning of health dangers. By some estimates, a lethal dose might cost as little as $22.50, plus tax. “Radiation from polonium is dangerous if the solid material is ingested or inhaled,” warns the label of an antistatic brush. “Keep away from children.”

Peter D. Zimmerman, a professor in the war studies department of King’s College, London, said the many industrial uses of polonium 210 threatened to complicate efforts at solving the Litvinenko case. “It’s a great Agatha Christie novel,” he said. “She couldn’t have written anything weirder than this.”

…

Industrial companies found polonium 210 to be ideal for making static eliminators that remove dust from film, lenses and laboratory balances, as well as paper and textile plants.

…

Manufacturers of antistatic devices take great pains to make the polonium hard to remove. Even so, Dr. Zimmerman of King’s College said it could be done with “careful lab work,” which he declined to describe.

…
An antistatic fan made by NRD, of Grand Island, N.Y., contains 31,500 microcuries of polonium 210 — or, in theory, more than 10 lethal doses. The unit often sells commercially for $225.00. Repeated calls to NRD were not returned, but the company in sales literature describes its products as unusually safe.

…
Still, several experts held out the possibility that close examination of polonium 210 residues from Mr. Litvinenko’s body or from the multiple sites where it has been found around London might reveal nuclear fingerprints that could throw light on the baffling case.

“What they’ll be looking for is radioactive contaminants made at the same time,” said Dr. Happer of Princeton. “They’ll do the best they can technically,” hoping to find a match between the London samples and the known attributes of the world’s stocks of polonium 210. “But my guess,” he added, “is that it will take an informant” to clear up the mystery.”

Polonium is found also in cigarettes.

Now to survey the sort of companies owned by the nefarious Israeli Russian oligarchs – chances are that at least one of the nasty critters has or had the stuff readily available in their factories.

Boris Berezovsky made his stack in Russia in the 1980s in the car industry.

Forbes was sued for libel by Berezovsky in the 90s in England.

“Forbes, an influential American fortnightly magazine, devoted considerable resources to the investigation and reporting of the situation in the post-Soviet phase in Russia. In 1996 its reporting centred on the role of two considerable figures in the new Russia. The first and most powerful was Mr. Boris Berezovsky. He is a businessman and politician. He has extensive interests in Russian businesses, including cars, oil, media and finance. In October 1996 he became Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation which is a senior post in the Russian Government. His subsequent career is not directly relevant but I mention it for an understanding of the context. In November 1997 President Yeltsin dismissed Mr. Berezovsky. In April 1998 Mr. Berezovsky was appointed as Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent Sates, with responsibility for co-operation between the various parts of the Russian Federation. The second figure of interest to Forbes was Mr. Nikolai Glouchkov. In December 1996 he was the First Deputy Manager of Aeroflot, the Russian international airline. He is now the Managing Director of Aeroflot.

In its issue of 30 December 1996 Forbes described the two men as “criminals on an outrageous scale”. On the contents page Mr. Berezovsky was introduced as follows:

“Is he the Godfather of the Kremlin? Power, Politics, Murder. Boris Berezovsky can teach the guys in Sicily a thing or two.”

The flavour of the article, which together with a prominent photograph of Mr. Berezovsky was spread over seven pages, is captured by an editorial published by Mr. James W. Michaels, the editor of Forbes. It states:

“. . . this is the true story of the brilliant, unscrupulous Boris Berezovsky, a close associate of President Boris Yeltsin and a man who parlayed an auto dealership into Russia’s most formidable business empire. Berezovsky stands tall as one of the most powerful men in Russia. Behind him lies a trail of corpses, uncollectible debts and competitors terrified for their lives.

“A number of Forbes editorial staffers were involved in the reporting and picture-gathering over a period of many months. As one of them puts it. “In Moscow, asking questions about Berezovsky was like being back there in pre-Gorbachev days. At the very mention of Berezovsky’s name, people would look around furtively, lower their voices and try to change the subject. “Russians have good reason to be afraid of Berezovsky and people like him: Emulating the old communist bosses, the new crime bosses use KGB-trained assassins and enforcers. In the prevalence of brutality and extralegal power grabs, Russia hasn’t finished paying the price for those 70 years of communism. “This is one of the finest pieces of reporting I have seen in my half-century in journalism.”

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldjudgmt/jd000511/bere-1.htm

The trail goes from the hotel in Grosvenor Square Mayfair to the Sushi Bar to Berezovsky’s office to a house in Grosvenor Street to Litvinenko’s home, yet as Justin Raimundo says, Litvinenko had at least 4 meetings that fateful day.

Lugovoy and Kovtun who met Litvinenko at the Millenium Hotel in Grosvenor Square deny involvement. Yet Lugovoy is connected with Gaidar, also poisoned, in Ireland.

“It is reported that Lugovoy was Gaidar’s chief bodyguard in the Nineties.”

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1962850,00.html

A switched cigarette packet would explain the trail – if Litvinenko was in fact a smoker. It would also explain the contamination of Scaramella, his wife, the radiation on the floor of the Millenium hotel (dropped butt?), as Litvinenko would inhale then exhale, the breathed out fumes contaminating those around him. It would also explain the light switch showing radiation – transference of polonium from Litvinenko’s fingers which had been holding the cigarette to the switch.

Also:

” The dictionary defines Erinys as “an avenging deity; one of the Furies; sometimes, conscience personified,” and doesn’t that send a bit of a chill down the spine? Alarm bells ought to be going off, at this point, as we learn that Erinys has its roots in the South African apartheid regime’s intelligence apparatus, and, in its present incarnation, has links to Ahmed “Hero in Error” Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress.

Erinys secured a contract from the Coalition Provisional Authority worth $80 million to protect Iraq’s oil infrastructure, and you can see what a good job they’ve been doing. While this may not be a bargain for American taxpayers, it is a good deal for the INC, practically a guarantee of permanent employment for Chalabi’s gang. Erinys employs their top people as legal counsel and uses Chalabi’s militia for the strong-arm stuff: 14,000 strong. And you thought the U.S. subsidy to Chalabi & Co. had ended!

Titon International, headed by the same CEO, is variously identified as a “private investigator,” and also an agency engaged in “confidential” “computer forensic investigation,” whatever that is: their Web site describes them as

“An independent Business Intelligence Company providing a wide range of bespoke security and intelligence services to the commercial world both in the UK and Overseas. All Titon services are necessarily discreet and precisely tailored to the client’s requirement – client confidentiality is of paramount importance to us and is always guaranteed.”

Titon’s graphic symbol, prominently displayed on their Web site, is an iceberg floating in the sea, with the great mass of it underwater and only a few icy peaks jutting through the surface.

…

The clean lines of the narrative – Litvinenko had just two meetings that day, and went right home after feeling ill – have been broken by interpolations of fact. There were, it seems, at least four meetings, with persons yet unknown, and in a sequence still to be determined. And more locations are under investigation, including the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel on Piccadilly: I’m guessing that is where Scaramella was staying, although it could also be a line of investigation we know nothing about at present.”

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10081

Lugovoi reckons he’s being set up. Berezovsky points the finger at him:

“Berezovsky, in an interview with the Moscow Times, seems to point the finger at Lugovoi, even as he abjures making any formal accusation:

“One of the Russians with whom Litvinenko met was Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer who worked with Litvinenko in the 1990s in a private security service for then-powerful businessman Boris Berezovsky, Goldfarb said.

“He and Berezovsky suggested Monday that Lugovoi now might have Kremlin backing.

“But they both stressed that there was no evidence linking Litvinenko’s illness to either meeting. … Berezovsky said by telephone that he had last met Lugovoi in late October or early November and that Lugovoi had spoken of managing a multimillion-dollar detective business. ‘This surprised me, as anyone close to me can normally not even find work in Moscow, let alone have a successful business,’ said Berezovsky. … ‘This raises questions, but I don’t want to point any fingers,’ he said.”

Oh, of course not! It is going to be a hard sell, however, portraying Lugovoi as a Kremlin agent, given his past services to Berezovsky.”

Dmitry Kovtun is ex-USSR military, and Lugovoy’s friend and partner, who stayed in Germany after 1991 and currently is a consultant for doing business in Russia. He also participated in the meeting and for whatever reason was called “Volodya” in early media reports.

Vyacheslav Sokolenko is from the same military colledge as Kovtun and Lugovoy and currently heads a private security company in Russia.

From what they are saying, they came to London for a football match and met with Litvinenko to discuss their business project. Meeting was in hotel and lasted 20-30 minutes, Lugovoy and Kovtun ordered drinks, Litvinenko did not eat or drink anything. At that time Sokolenko was showing London to Lugovoy’s and his own families, and met Litvinenko shortly at the end of the meeting when they were back at the hotel.”

http://www.eurotrib.com/comments/2006/11/25/102316/15/57?mode=alone;showrate=1#57

“Vyacheslav Sokolenko, a business partner of Mr Lugovoi, was at the hotel at the time and matches the description. He denies having anything to do with the poisoning and is not a suspect.

Last night, Mr Sokolenko said he met Mr Litvinenko in the hotel lobby. “We shook hands out of politeness and then we went to our rooms.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/25/npoison725.xml

“He said the two met on Nov. 1 at a hotel bar, where they were joined by Lugovoy’s business partner Dmitry Kovtun. Later, another business partner, Vyacheslav Sokolenko, as well as Lugovoy’s wife and son joined the group. Lugovoy said Litvinenko did not eat anything, but that drinks were ordered.

Lugovoy adds, “Everyone says I met him before his meeting with the Italian. This is not right – I met him after his meeting with the Italian.””

http://www.topix.net/content/cbs/0366141228416514974208723409533667297524

So the sushi appears to be the point of intial contact with the poison.

Symptoms of poisoning apparently show within an hour or so of polonium ingestion. If my cigarette theory is correct, perhaps lunch was followed by a ciggie. Then more later – leading to a critical dose by the time of the meeting with the Russian trio at the Millenium hotel at 4 p.m.

Alternatively, if the poison was administered by a contaminated document maybe Litvinenko first handled it at the sushi bar, then later pulled it out to have another look.

Either way it has to be something he’s touched, because of the radioactive traces on the light switch.

“In Israel, Russian exile Leonid Nevzlin said Litvinenko’s death could be linked to investigations into charges laid against ex-shareholders and former owners of the Yukos oil company.

Nevzlin _ a former shareholder in the Yukos oil company _ told Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper on Friday that Litvinenko had visited him for a meeting.

He said he had passed on documents related to the campaign of criminal charges and tax claims against Yukos shareholders and officials, including now-jailed founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Nevzlin told the newspaper he feared the ex-agent’s death could be connected to the probe.

Nevzlin was charged by Russian prosecutors with organizing murders, fraud and tax evasion, and lives in self-imposed exile in Israel to evade prosecution.”

Israhell doesn’t allow extradition of its crooks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500159_2.html?nav=hcmodule

“n today’s Observer, Svetlichnaja, a politics student at the University of Westminster, says Litvinenko claimed he had access to Russian intelligence documents containing information on individuals and companies that had fallen foul of the Kremlin.

‘He told me he was going to blackmail or sell sensitive information about all kinds of powerful people, including oligarchs, corrupt officials and sources in the Kremlin,’ she said. ‘He mentioned a figure of £10,000 that they would pay each time to stop him broadcasting these FSB documents. Litvinenko was short of money and was adamant that he could obtain any files he wanted.’

Litvinenko’s access to such documents could have made him an enemy of both big business interests and the Kremlin. However, his claims are almost impossible to verify and some political analysts have gone as far as to dismiss him as a fantasist.

Shvets, 53, emerges as yet another character in an espionage saga linking Britain, Italy, the US and Russia. Like Litvinenko, Shvets worked for the Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, whom the Kremlin has tried unsuccessfully to extradite from Britain. Shvets was a KGB major between 1980 and 1990, during which time he worked undercover in Washington as a correspondent for the Russian news agency, Tass. He emigrated to the US in 1993 and wrote a book about his experiences.

Shvets met Scaramella in Washington last year to discuss the Italian’s role as a consultant to the Mitrokhin commission, set up by the Italian government to investigate Russian infiltration during the Cold War. It has been alleged that Scaramella discussed with the commission’s chief, Paolo Guzzanti, whether they should look for evidence that Romano Prodi, Italy’s Prime Minister, was linked to the KGB. Prodi denies any link.

Last night another link connecting the worlds of Italian politics and Russian intelligence emerged. Gerard Batten, an MEP for the UK Independence Party, confirmed Litvinenko had told him a man called ‘Sokolov’, who worked undercover as a Russian agent in the Seventies as a reporter for Tass, was the key link between senior Italian politicians and the KGB.

This week Scotland Yard will interview two Russians who met Litvinenko on the same day he had lunch with Scaramella. Andrei Lugovoy, a former agent with the FSB, and Dmitry Kovtun met Litvinenko in the Millennium Mayfair hotel. Traces of polonium have been found on the planes on which they are believed to have travelled between London and Moscow.”

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1962759,00.html

Julia Svetlichnaja, politics student:

“The next time we met, in the summer, we ended up walking around Hyde Park for hours. I started to wonder whether meeting Litvinenko was a waste of time. He told me shamelessly of his blackmailing plans aimed at Russian oligarchs. ‘They have got enough, why not to share? I will do it officially,’ he said. After two hours of traipsing around the park, I suggested we sit down somewhere. ‘Professionals never sit and talk, they walk and walk around so nobody can overhear their conversation,’ he muttered darkly.”

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1962762,00.html

Certainly gives Berezovsky and the oligarch coterie plenty of motive.

“The potential suspect Lugovoi told The Sunday Times he was the mystery businessman who had visited locations across London since tested positive for radioactivity, including the Sheraton Park Lane hotel. According to other sources, he also went to the offices of Boris Berezovsky, the dissident Russian billionaire.

The radioactive trail suggests that Lugovoi, also a former spy, was contaminated with polonium-210 as early as October 25, about a week before Litvinenko was poisoned, probably at a sushi bar in Piccadilly.

Lugovoi denied he and two business associates, Dmitri Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, were involved in any plot. All three men met Litvinenko on November 1, the day he was poisoned. “We suspect that someone has been trying to frame us,” said Lugovoi. “Someone passed this stuff onto us . . . so as to point the finger at us and distract the police.” He also suggested they could have been contaminated by Litvinenko.

Lugovoi, who has been in contact with Scotland Yard, said he had flown to London from Moscow on October 25, checking into the Sheraton Park Lane. It may explain how the hotel was contaminated, as Litvinenko did not visit it on November 1.

During a second trip to London to watch the Arsenal-CSKA Moscow football match, Lugovoi, Kovtun and Sokolenko met Litvinenko at the Millennium hotel in Mayfair. Yesterday police mounted a search for polonium in the part of the Emirates stadium where Lugovoi had been sitting and gave it the all-clear.

By the time of the meeting at the Millennium hotel, Litvinenko is thought to have already eaten at the Itsu sushi bar with Mario Scaramella, an Italian security expert. Yesterday the bar’s manager was contacted by police for a second time.

Litvinenko fell seriously ill shortly after this meeting with Scaramella. As he lay dying, he said he believed Lugovoi was a key suspect.

Alexander Goldfarb, Litvinenko’s friend, said: “He obviously suspected Lugovoi. He suspected Scaramella too, but he suspected Lugovoi more. That is why when he was ill, he never put that meeting with Lugovoi and his associates into the public domain. He wanted to lure him back to London when he got better.”

Scaramella was yesterday at University College hospital after he tested positive for radioactivity. He was said to have no symptoms of radiation sickness, but Sergio Rastrelli, his lawyer, said: “The doctors have told him polonium always has potentially lethal effects. He either inhaled or ingested polonium. He was not contaminated by Litvinenko.”

Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, who has also been contaminated, is showing no sign of illness and her level of radiation is described by police sources as “absolutely minimal”.

Police sources confirmed the dose administered to Litvinenko was “at least 100 times” the amount needed to kill somebody.

The sushi bar is the most likely place that Litvinenko and Scaramella were poisoned, but detectives do not know how the radioactive material was administered. They are not ruling out the possibility that the two men were poisoned separately elsewhere.

Detectives have told ministers they are closing in on a suspect. They say he is a businessmen who travelled from Moscow to London before November 1 but refuse to say whether Lugovoi is the suspect.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,234017,00.html

Unbelievable amount of differing stories in the media as to whether Scaramella is cactus or not.

Latest reports say not:

“Initial tests on an Italian contact of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko show no sign of radiation poisoning, a hospital said on Saturday.

Mario Scaramella was admitted to hospital in London when polonium 210, the same radioactive substance that killed Litvinenko, was detected in his body.

The Litvinenko mystery has sparked a health scare after authorities said this week that traces of radiation had been found at 12 sites and aboard planes that carried 33,000 passengers in the past month, many flying between London and Moscow. The affair also strained London’s relations with Moscow.

“He is well. Preliminary tests so far show no evidence of radiation toxicity,” a spokesman for University College Hospital said of Scaramella. Further tests are due to be carried out over the weekend.”

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-12-02T1

UPDATE 25/3/13

Boris Berezovsky ‘a broken man’ before his death

‘Police said they were trying to “gain a better understanding” of the businessman’s state of mind in his final days and indicated that they thought he had killed himself. Detective Chief Inspector Kevin Brown of Thames Valley Police said: “We do not have evidence to suggest third party involvement.”

However, given the dead man’s association with the murdered ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko and the history of attempts on his life in Moscow and London, police are continuing to investigate. MI5 and Scotland Yard’s anti-terror unit have been kept informed and it is understood that samples from Mr Berezovsky’s body will be sent to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston for analysis. Scientists there discovered that Mr Litvinenko had been poisoned in 2006 with radioactive polonium 210.

Mr Berezovsky’s friend said he had been depressed after losing a court battle with Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea FC owner, in October. His assets had been frozen after he and Helena Gorbunova separated in December.

“I don’t think there was any reason for the Russians to kill Boris – he was destroyed six months ago by the British courts,” said Alex Goldfarb, a longtime friend. “That was a huge victory for (President) Putin. Boris was effectively taken out of the picture. He had started smoking again, he was drinking, he had stopped enjoying life. He was under tremendous stress.” Lord Bell, Mr Berezovsky’s PR spokesman, said: “I saw him last two weeks ago and he was very depressed, very low.”’