SOMALINET NEWS ...Archives
UK: RUSSIA RESPONSIBLE FOR KGB AGENT'S DEATH December 5, 2006
Zainab Osman
(SomaliNet) Intelligence services in Britain are convinced that the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko was authorized by the Russian Federal Security Service. The Times quoted security sources as saying 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 Litvinenko, the FSB has to be the prime suspect," a source reported. According to the report, the involvement of a former FSB officer made it easier to lure Litvinenko to meetings at various locations and to distance its bosses in the Kremlin from being directly implicated in the plot.
Intelligence officials said that only officials such as FSB agents would have been able to obtain sufficient amounts of polonium-210, the radioactive substance used to fatally poison Litvinenko only weeks after he was given British citizenship.
A senior police source reported that the method used to kill the 43-year-old dissident was intended to send a message to his friends and allies.