Leonid Nevzlin becomes suspected of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko.
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Leonid Nevzlin Gets Polonium and Mercury
// New suspect appeared in Alexander Litvinenko’s murder case
To extradite him from the U.S.
Prosecutor General's Office said yesterday it suspects former co-owner of YUKOS Leonid Nevzlin of being involved in the poisoning of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London. Nevzlin also became suspected in being linked to the “poisoning of Russian citizens with toxic agents”. Nevzlin’s lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov believes that Prosecutor General's Office is pushing for Nevzlin’s extradition from the U.S.. Nevzlin said the Office’s statements are “complete nonsense which is not worth any comments”.
Prosecutor General's Office announced yesterday that it is investigating a possibility that former co-owner of YUKOS Leonid Nevzlin might be involved in the poisoning of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210, and an assassination attempt against his business partner Dmitry Kovtun in London. The Office claims that investigators established connection between this crime and a certain attempt at poisoning by means of mercury. The Office says that mercury vapors “were found in cars, apartments, country houses, and offices both in Moscow and in London”. It has already created an investigatory group to probe into those crimes. The Office intends to prepare documents soon and to “direct requests for legal help in the criminal cases under investigation to corresponding competent authorities, and to raise the question of extradition of several citizens charged with heavy crimes who are taking refuge abroad”.
The Office’s statements were transmitted to news agencies with “urgent” markings on them. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Premier, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told Kommersant already a week ago that London’s polonium scandal may receive a most sudden continuation. “I admit that if the investigation goes on, -- and I hope it will go on, for we are interested in it, -- completely unexpected versions might appear, which are not considered now at all,” predicted Ivanov back then.
Apparently, a “new version” appeared after Leonid Nevzlin and his family traveled to the U.S. from Israel on December 24. Two days after their arrival to New Jersey, Interpol’s National Bureau in Russia said that Nevzlin encountered some problems. He was allegedly detained in the airport, but then they let him go, having informed Russian law-enforcement authorities about his current location. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has been looking for Nevzlin abroad for two years already, due to secret accusations in organizing murders and assassination attempts. However, the Office received refusal to extradite Nevzlin from other countries. The U.S. also refused to give him out last year. Now the secret accusations have been reinforced by secret suspicions.
It is not accidental that mercury vapors appeared in the case. Former head of MENATEP bank’s investment management Alexei Golubovich, arrested in Italy this spring, gave testimony that there was an attempt to poison him and his family with mercury which was left in his offices, home, and car. Golubovich said that Nevzlin might be interested in poisoning him, because YUKOS shareholders and CEOs were then arguing over who would control foreign property and funds of the company. Some time later, London witnessed a scandal when a Scotland Yard officer handed over information on extradition to Russia of London-based Russian citizens to British security agency ISC Global. The agency was part of MENATEP, and Nevzlin, among others, used its services. Polonium trace was discovered in November in the office of former ISC Global, which is now called RISC Management. According to Scotland Yard, Litvinenko and his business partners, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, visited the office.
Lugovoi said yesterday that he does not know anything about Nevzlin’s connection to Litvinenko’s death. Litvinenko’s friend, political emigrant Boris Berezovsky thinks that such suspicions are “groundless”. Head of the Foundation for Civil Rights Alex Goldfarb believes that anti-Nevzlin accusations is an attempt to “shuffle off the blame for Litvinenko’s murder from those guilty on to those who are not”: “We all know it was done by Russian special service agents who brought polonium from Moscow”.
“Prosecutor General’s Office is taking advantage of the fact that my client arrived to the U.S., trying to persuade Americans that all Russia’s charges to him are true, and that they should arrest him for extradition,” said Nevzlin’s lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov. “The Office cannot and does not have any relation to investigating Litvinenko’s murder. All decisions for this case can be made only by competent authorities of the country where the crime was committed, that is Great Britain.” “All this is just complete nonsense which is not worth any comments”, said Leonid Nevzlin.
Nikolai Sergeev
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 28, 2006
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