Putin Killed Litvinenko

I've been rather bemused by the reluctance of both the British authorities and large swathes of the commentariat to draw the most logically straightforward conclusion from the death of Alexander Litvinenko right on the heels of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya - namely, that both were killed on the say-so of Vladimir Putin - with all sorts of dishonest types advancing convoluted, completely unsubstantiated theories about Litvinenko having been a blackmailer, the Russian mafia having done the deed, Putin being "too smart" to have someone rubbed out abroad for insulting him, etc., and this in spite of the fact that Polonium-210 is hardly something to be obtained easily in great quantities even by the wealthiest criminals. As it turns out, the margin for denial is steadily running out, as the British secret services arrive at the conclusion any sane person ought to have reached at the start, given that the man at the head of the Kremlin is a KGB thug.

Intelligence services in Britain are convinced that the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko was authorised by the Russian Federal Security Service.

Security sources have told The Times that the FSB orchestrated a "highly sophisticated plot" and was likely to have used some of its former agents to carry out the operation on the streets of London.

"We know how the FSB operates abroad and, based on the circumstances behind the death of Mr Litvinenko, the FSB has to be the prime suspect," a source said yesterday.

Intelligence officials say that only officials such as FSB agents would have been able to obtain sufficent amounts of polonium-210, the radioactive substance used to fatally poison Mr Litvinenko only weeks after he was given British citizenship.

Watch for those who continue to peddle far-fetched rationales for diflecting suspicion from Vladimir Putin, as you can be sure they're doing so to advance diabolical hidden agendas: no one whose brain and moral faculties are in working order would strain a single fiber of his being playing the apologist for Putin's poison palace.

By the way, I'm glad to see that at least some people realize that the despicable nature of Putin's regime is not just another partisan issue to feed domestic American rivalries, even if the man goes out of his way to oppose Bush in international affairs. Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is an even bigger enemy of yours.

Source: FD