Now It's "Official"- Russian Assassins Murdered Alexander Litvinenko

It certainly took the British establishment long enough to arrive at that long-obvious conclusion. [1]

Ten years ago, two ruthless Russian FSB agents, Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi, tricked Litvinenko into meeting with them, and spiked a cup of green tea with radioactive polonium-210. Litvinenko then died a slow, agonizing death over the next three weeks.

Traces of polonium were found in the drain of Kovtun's hotel room, in spots around London where the killers had passed through, even on the airplane they flew on.

The new report concludes that Vladimir Putin "probably" ordered the hit. [2]

I'd make that very very probably. How about virtually certain.

Litvinenko, who became a British citizen, was himself a former FSB (Russian secret police) agent who had become a whistleblower about corruption and murder by the FSB. Worse, he exposed the false flag apartment building bombings in Moscow, pinned on Chechen separatists, as actually being FSB terrorist acts to justify the subsequent all-out war on Chechnya, during which the capital of Grozny was reduced to pulverized rubble. (Litvinenko wasn't the only one to make the claim about the true authors of the Moscow apartment bombings. Unfortunately I haven't seen hard evidence of the claim, or the factual underpinnings of it. So I have to be agnostic about it.)

The Russian state and media have, predictably, scoffed at the British announcement. They also cite their Constitution, which bars extradition of Russian citizens in any event. (The British in the past demanded the extradition of the two known culprits, and were refused.)

The murderous Lugovoi has gone on to bigger and better things than merely being a hitman. He's now a parliamentarian, a member of the Duma, Russia's legislature. And he received an award for his services to the state. Figures.

Two years before Litvinenko's murder, Yasser Arafat was also murdered by polonium poisoning, obviously by Israel. Ariel Sharon had just washed his hands of Arafat, who was blamed for blocking "peace" (Palestinian surrender). Arafat's replacement was Mahmoud Abbas (also styled as Abu Mazen), who had proved a quite willing collaborator with Israel, having the CIA train his "security forces" to oppress the Palestinians in the West Bank, and aid and abet Israeli kidnappings and murders of Palestinians there. But the weapon used to assassinate Arafat only became known recently when Al-Jazeera undertook an investigation and polonium was discovered on Arafat's personal effects. Then Abbas stalled an exhumation and proper autopsy and testing of Arafat's remains. (Gee, I wonder why.)

The Palestinian people always assumed Arafat was poisoned. They just didn't know by what.

What's still unknown is exactly who. But as Arafat was at the time trapped in his headquarters in Ramallah by Israel, and got his food from the Israelis, we know generally who. And we know the order would have had to come from the very top- from prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Polonium, by the way, is produced in nuclear reactors. So it is no garden variety murder weapon readily available to any killer.

1] According to the UK Guardian, it was Litvinenko's widow, who forced the British government to even hold an inquiry, battling for 10 years to expose his killers. The Guardian says" "Her biggest obstacle has been the Conservative government and its coalition predecessor: it initially refused her request for a public inquiry, only agreeing after defeat in the high court and the shooting down, apparently by pro-Russian forces of a civilian jet,  Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17." (My emphasis.) ["Litvinenko inquiry: the key players," Guardian, 21 January, 2016.]

So I guess the Russians are right. This is "political." Which doesn't make it false. There is quite a large volume of evidence, available at the Inquiry's website, linked below.

2] "Litvinenko 'probably murdered on personal orders of Putin'," UK Guardian, 21 January, 2016.
To read the actual report, go to The Litvinenko Inquiry. For a description of the background and the conduct of the inquiry by the government, go to Publication of the Inquiry Report.

"Who, me?" The cutthroat Andrei Lugovoi.

The polonium poisoned teapot.