7 (Bartenders) Test Radioactive at Bar Where Ex-Spy Met Russians

NY Times ^ | Dec 7, 2006 | By ALAN COWELL and STEVEN LEE MYERS

[jdm]

LONDON, Dec. 7 — Seven bartenders at an upscale hotel in central London have tested positive for radioactive contamination, the British authorities said Thursday, raising new questions about the radiation poisoning death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former Russian agent.

In Moscow, Russia said it had opened its own criminal investigation into the death of Mr. Litvinenko, who was buried Thursday, two weeks after he died, in a private ceremony in London. Russian authorities also said a Russian businessman, Dmitri V. Kovtun, who was interviewed by British investigators in Moscow, was found to have signs of radioactive poisoning.

In London, attention swung back to the Pine Bar of the Mayfair Millennium Hotel, in Grosvenor Square, close to the American Embassy, where Mr. Litvinenko was reported to have met both Mr. Kovtun and another Russian contact, Andrei K. Lugovoi, on Nov. 1.

That was the day Mr. Litvinenko complained of feeling ill. He also ate at a sushi bar on the same day, although it is not clear which establishment he visited first. The exposure to the bartenders revived questions about exactly where Mr. Litvinenko had been poisoned, how he was poisoned and who else might have been contaminated.

The British health authorities said they would contact 250 people who called in after Mr. Litvinenko’s death to say they had been at the Pine Bar on Nov. 1 and would ask them to take a urine test for radioactive contamination.

Prof. Pat Troop, the chief executive of Britain’s Health Protection Agency, said all seven members of the bar staff tested had shown “a low level of contamination” that carried no short-term health risks but a “very small” long-range cancer risk.

[Gabz]

LOL on the foreign measures! Anytime I come across a recipe with them, I skip to the next one no matter how good it looks because I can't be bothered with messing around wiht the conversions!

[Paloma_55]

So the spy says he was poisoned, but in actuality, he was selling the Polonium to Islamic terrorists. Like the dufus he was, he actually screwed up and exposed himself to it. Then, his buddies got exposed.

Once it became clear he was dying, he blamed Putin who he hates for crushing the Chechnyan rebellion..composed of Islamic fascist terrorists.

Dunno... not much of a punch line, but it has a punch!

[justa-hairyape]

Problem with that theory is he was not a 'dufus'. He was ex-KGB. They do not hire 'dufuses'. The 7 bartenders being contaminated rules Scaramella completely out of the picture. On the day he was poisoned, Litveninko visited with Scaramella who just happened to have a hit list stating a group of Russian agents/ex-agents (called Dignity and Honor) had put Litveninko and Scaramella on a hit list. Scaramella thought he was implicated because he knew something about the fact that prominent Italian Leftist politicians were double agents working for Russia. Litveninko may have already been poisoned while he was reading that email hit list. Imagine the odds of that being just happenstance.