Free Republic

On New Year’s Day in 1988, Abdullah Ali, an Iraqi businessman who had been living in London for eight years, joined three compatriots for dinner at a restaurant called Cleopatra in Notting Hill.The next morning, he was taken ill with flu-like symptoms and was admitted to hospital. There his condition rapidly deteriorated — his hair fell out, he developed excruciating skin and joint pain, and paralysis and respiratory failure began to set in. Fifteen days later he was dead — but not before he had begun to wonder whether something had been added to his vodka. He was right: the...

24/12/2006 - 2:18:23 PM Italian who met spy Litvinenko arrested  :: latest Police today arrested an Italian security expert who met former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill from poisoning. Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples, where he landed on his way back from London, Italian news agencies reported. Rome prosecutors have been investigating Scaramella for violating secrets of his office and possible arms trafficking. Scaramella met Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on November 1, the day the former spy fell ill. On his deathbed on November 23, Litvinenko - a former KGB agent and harsh...

The Polonium Diversion At least a dozen people have been contaminated by the rare radioactive isotope Polonium 210. The list includes Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB who died from a dose of Polonium 210 in London on November 23rd; Andrei Lugovoi, a former colleague of Litvinenko in the KGB, who met with Litvinenko at the Pine bar of the Millennium Hotel in London the day he became ill, November 1st; Dmitry Lugovoi, Lugovoi’s business associate, who also attended that November 1st meetings; 7 employees of the Millennium Hotel; Mario Scaramella, an Italian security consultant, who dined with...

The last person to meet Alexander Litvinenko before he succumbed to the agonising effects of radioactive poisoning is a self-professed expert in nuclear materials. International 'security consultant' Mario Scaramella, who joined Litvinenko for the now infamous clandestine meeting in a London sushi bar, headed an organisation which tracked dumped nuclear waste, including Soviet nuclear missiles left over from the Cold War.