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by copydude

Last time out, I detailed some fairly logical reasons why Polonium is a poor choice as a murder weapon.

Not the least of which being that it leaves a trail and puts the poisoner at risk as well as the victim.

You can add one more. If you want to gag somebody - a ‘fierce critic’ - you would hardly choose a slow kill method that lets the dirtbag spend three weeks blabbing to the world’s press. Unless, perhaps, you control the mouthpiece and could doctor the information coming out.

That hypothesis fingers just one person, Boris Berezovsky.

It is remarkable the extent to which the news is doctored. The reporting of the ‘trail of poison’ commonly names the Sheraton and the Millenium and the Itsu Sushi. But the name of Erinys has been excised from reports. It’s now at best, ‘a security firm’. It’s also well-hidden that Litvinenko and Lugovoy visited not one but two security firms, the other one being RISC management. RISC is an offshoot of ISC Global Security set up by old Yukos gangsters. Hmmm. Now their website is down.

Suppressed too was Litvinenko’s conversion to Islam. Well, mercenaries and muslims don’t look good on a press release attempting to portray Ltivinenko as an upstanding British citizen. The Times is quite dizzy with spin:

‘Litvinenko was a loyal servant of the state . . . who grew disillusioned with the corruption of the FSB’

And I’m a banana. Litvinenko’s career at the FSB was dead once his krysha - russian mafiaspeak for roof - Berezovsky, was elbowed from government.

Much has been made of the fact the Litvinenko was the spy who knew . . not too much. True, his ’sensational’ books exposing Putin were a flop. But he was indeed busy digging dirt on everyone and anyone, from Romano Prodi to Yukos. And there, with his reputation as a loose cannon, he probably was highly dangerous.

Two related events have been overshadowed by the whodunnit and the Putinphobia stories. The first is Operation Wasp in Spain. Russia’s leading and former Yukos lawyer, Alexander Gofshtein, was arrested in Spain on November 24.

Operation Wasp is an international sting on money laundering. Last year it shackled 28 Russian mafia and froze 800 bank accounts. Now it has another nine in the slammer plus their lawyer - who only thought he was flying in for a day to see a client. These events would have happened with the welcome co-operation of Russian intelligence. Putin’s noose is tightening around the oligarchs and exiles.

The other related event I mentioned earlier is that, on November 16, Russia and Britain signed a new memorandum on extradition. Putin wants Zakayev and Berezovsky. Russia’s ‘no extradition’ stance on the current enquiry could well be a bargaining position. Russian bargaining only goes from Nyet to Da, it’s the way they do it.

So, all in all, Putin is rather pleased the way things are going. More Yukos mobsters are in a Spanish jail. Berezovsky’s London office is sealed up with special branch crawling all over it and facing a new extradition threat. And probably not one but two trouble-makers are out of the way. When Goldfarb, Berezovsky’s lawyer, told the world he had a smuggled letter from Trepashkin, he dropped the imprisoned source right in it. Sixty lashes a day and no porridge guaranteed for Trepashkin. If he’s still alive.

But, just a minute, weren’t Litvinenko and Trepashkin friends of Berezovsky? The exiles now appear so endangered and confused they are stabbing each in the front. Putin must be lovin’ it.