Nuclear cloak & daggerRussian secret agents implicated in nuclear poisoning of a critic of Putin
Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident and a vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin, died in London on 23 November 2006 after suffering from radioactive polonium-210 poisoning. An inquest has established that on 1 November 2006 he ingested large quantities of the radioactive material, surreptitiously put in his tea by two agents of the Russian Federal Protective Services. A nuclear expert testifying at the inquest said that less than a millionth of a gram of polonium would be enough to kill a human being.
Details of the inquiry into the mysterious death of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident and a vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin who died in London on 23 November 2006 after suffering from radioactive polonium-210 poisoning, reveal that a postmortem was performed only once to protect medical staff from radiation poisoning.
Dr. Nathaniel Cary, the lead pathologist who examined Litvinenko’s body after his death, said he and other officials examining the body had worn two protective suits, two pairs of gloves sealed at the wrists, and large, battery-operated plastic hoods which supplied filtered air. The examination included a second pathologist, a police detective constable, a photographer, an adviser from the U.K. Institute of Naval Medicine, and a radiation protection officer who monitored traces of blood on the protective clothing worn by all, wiping them away and monitoring for traces of alpha radiation.
In contrast to standard postmortems, where there may be an option to perform a second examination of the body, Cary said “this was such a dangerous postmortem exam to carry out that you only really want to do it once if at all possible.” The examination “has been described as one of the most dangerous postmortem examinations ever undertaken in the western world, and I think that’s probably right,” he added.
Cary explains that Polonium-210 emits alpha radiation, which, unlike gamma radiation, is not highly penetrative. However, “the real danger is that it gets into your body, because (the alpha rays) go on emitting for quite a long time, which of course when it’s in your body it’s distributed around your body, and any cell next to where it’s distributed is badly affected by the continuous bombardment of alpha rays.”
The Guardian reports that Litvinenko was admitted to Barnet and Chase Farm hospital in north London on 3 November and was initially diagnosed with a gastrointestinal infection and treated with antibiotics. Within days of his hospital arrival, Litvinenko lost his hair and developed pancytopenia, a deficiency of red and white blood cells, and platelets in the blood. A bone marrow biopsy on 16 November revealed bone marrow failure, after which Litvinenko was transferred to the hematology unit at University College hospital. His kidney and liver function soon weakened, and on 22 November he suffered a cardio-respiratory arrest. Litvinenko died the following day after another similar arrest.
