Screen shot of Polonium offered for sale
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Isotope that Killed Litvinenko Sold Freely in U.S.
British Airways reported yesterday that traces of a radioactive substance, assumed to be Polonium-210, which was used to kill political emigrant Alexander Litvinenko, were found on two of its airplanes. One of those planes made a London-Moscow-London flight on November 3. It was on that flight that former KGB officer and Litvinenko acquaintance Andrey Luovoi returned to Moscow. It has been uncovered that Polonium-210 can be produced practically in the home kitchen or legally ordered over the Internet in the United States.
The British Airways statement, posted on the company's website, says that two of its Boeing 767 aircraft were checked for radiation. Results showed “very weak traces of radiation.” Both aircraft have been taken out of service. One of them flight regularly-scheduled BA-874/BA-875 London-Moscow-London flights on November 3, 7, 8 and 9. British Airways informs passengers who took those flights that they should seek medical attention for potential radiation exposure. One more plane is also under suspicion. It was located in Moscow yesterday evening.
London police theorize that Litvinenko may have been poisoned with Polonium-210 on November 1. On that day, he met with Mario Scaramella, a security consultant and professor at several universities in Italy and the United States, and with former chief of security for Russian ORT television Andrey Lugovoi and Lugovoi's friends. Scaramella is now under police protection in London and is giving evidence. A medical examination has shown that he was not subject to radiation effects. Kommersant has learned that Lugovoi is undergoing similar examination in Moscow. He told Kommersant yesterday that he returned to Moscow from London on one of the “irradiated” planes on November 3, that is, two days after the presumed poisoning of Litvinenko. Lugovoi continues to state that he has no connection with the events that took place in London. Traces of radiation could remain on anyone who came into contact with Litvinenko and be spread to the airplane from those people.
The London newspaper The Independent reported yesterday that Scaramella told police that Litvinenko organized smuggling of nuclear material to the West when he worked for the FSB. Litvinenko allegedly told Scaramella that he arranged a delivery of radioactive material to Zurich in 2000. “The delusion in those suggestions is that Alexander Litvinenko was fired from the FSB in 1998 and soon arrested. In October 2000 he fled to Great Britain. It is absurd to claim that Sasha [Litvinenko] was engaged in smuggling radioactive substances under FSB cover after that,” countered Litvinenko's friend, head of the International Foundation for Civil Liberties. Alexander Gusak, a Moscow lawyer and once Litvinenko's commander in the FSB, stated that Litvinenko was never involved in investigating the smuggling of radioactive materials while in FSB service.
Atomic industry experts say that the Polonium-210 that was used to poison Litvinenko could almost be produced at home. “There are many ways of obtaining that isotope,” former Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Evgeny Adamov told Kommersant. “You need bismuth, which is openly available, and a source of neutrons, an accessible medical instrument, for example. The irradiation of bismuth with neutrons produces Polonium.” Adamov said that the poisoners of Litvinenko could have obtained Polonium-210 “anywhere at all.” “The substance is inconvenient for terrorist because, besides being radioactive, it is highly toxic,” Adamov continued. “Although the alpha-particle emission of Polonium-210 has no deep penetration ability, if it enters the human body, it leads to extremely serious consequences.”
Polonium-210 is accessible not only to terrorists and spies. Small quantities of the substance can be obtained for scientific purposes, among other ways, over the Internet from the American company United Nuclear of Sandia Park, New Mexico. That company will deliver Polonium-210 in a hermetically-sealed capsule within 3 to 14 days for $69. The only condition for purchase is that it be shipped to an American address. The site indicates that the company does not ship abroad.
Sergey Chabanenko
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 30, 2006
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