Putin Agents Blamed for Spy Murder That Imperiled London

[uhnope]

Source: Bloomberg News

The finger of blame for the murder of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko “points unwaveringly” at two agents working for President Vladimir Putin, a lawyer for London police said at an inquiry into the killing.

Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun are “common murderers” and should be tried in the U.K. for the 2006 assassination of Litvinenko in London with radioactive material, Richard Horwell, the Metropolitan Police Service’s lawyer, said in closing arguments in the inquiry that started in January.

“But as such a trial seems unlikely, our silence must now end,” Horwell said in London Thursday.
Litvinenko, a Russian dissident who lived in the U.K. capital, died about three weeks after ingesting the radioactive polonium. British prosecutors said in 2007 that the two men should be charged with murder.
...
“Evidence suggests that the only credible explanation is that in one way or another the Russian state was involved in Litvinenko’s murder,” Horwell said. “There can be no doubt that the Russian state” had its reasons for not “wishing him harm but death.”



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-30/russian-agents-to-blame-for-litvinenko-death-police-lawyer-says

[nilesobek]

1. Isn't this story ten years old?

[cloudythescribbler]

2. Yes, but ...

The relations b/t NATO countries and Russia now is very poor. Notice for example how, when in 1973 Israel shoots down a Libyan civilian airliner (knowingly) or in 1976 a Cuban airliner is deliberately shot down as part of operation Mongoose (with the perpetrators still being protected by the US) or in 1988 an Iranian Airliner (knowingly? -- claimed not but dubious) is shot down by the US over the Persian Gulf, it's all swept under the rug. There's no international call for sanctions, or cancellation of the 2018 Soccer championship or anything like that when OUR side shoots down a civilian airliner. But when (probably) ethnic Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine, armed with a Russian made missile launcher, mistakenly as nonpros shoot down a civilian airliner (still a serious tragedy, no less than the others) there are whoops and calls for blood throughout the media and in all kinds of international fora

It is not that no fault exists or that the fault, as here, is not serious, it is that it is mere ammunition in a completely one-sided employment of all moral concerns merely as a stick to beat down the enemy

The same folk who never let these issues even fade one bit are only too eager to sweep any kind of human rights violations or atrocities by the good guys (ie our side) under a rug and treat it as nothing. Obama's suggesting the the annexation of Crimea (which should have a more open vote on it) was WORSE than the Iraq War by the US is a case in point.

[elias49]

3. Amen! eom

[KoKo]

4. ...!

[MBS]

5. no surprise at all, of course

but useful to get to the truth behind this.