Putin’s hit squad almost killed a London pianist

Putin’s hit squad almost killed a London pianist

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norman lebrecht

November 18, 2017

It has emerged that the FSB unit which poisoned the Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006 almost took the life of a pianist at the London hotel where they met their prey.

Derek Conlon, 51, later drank from the same coffee cup. Although it had been through the dishwasher, it was still contaminated with the polonium-210 that killed Litvinenko.

He has written about the experience in a new book, Sea’s the Moment.

Read here.

 

Comments

  • Anon says:

    Why would a state security service use an extremely rare weapon, that traces back with 99% likelihood to the source, when there are so many other possibilities to under cover kill a target person, which could have been committed by anyone or look like an accident?
    More likely a classical false flag operation, that Litvinenko Polonium saga.

    • Sue says:

      Naive question. It didn’t matter to the Russians whether they were found out; they simply don’t care and nobody is ever going to do anything about it. And it protected their agents in the UK.

      • Anon says:

        very illogical answer. of course it would have mattered to the Russians. Putin was in the middle of a campaign to establish closer ties with Europe at that time…
        Others were in the middle of a campaign to isolate him…

        • Sue says:

          Absolutely priceless. Was that before or after his decision to invade the Ukraine?

          • Anon says:

            before the US’ decision to invade Ukraine with covert means and pump billions into its shady opposition, many of them right wing nazis, trying to stir unrest at Russia’s western flank, successfully, at least.

    • Bill says:

      Simple: to send a message to everyone else making trouble (or even thinking about it) for the regime. That message: we are willing to kill you in a particularly unpleasant fashion, you won’t be able to see us coming, and we want you to know who did it.

    • MacroV says:

      Seriously, Litvenenko denial? I don’t even think the Russian trolls are pushing that one anymore. It’s been well established that it had to be a state actor. Besides the obvious question about who would have the motive, I’m pressure sure the British have evidence.

      • Anon says:

        State actor probably. But there could have been a few…
        Also Berezovsky was reported to have a strong motive to kill him but make it look like the Kremlin did it.
        Last not least it could have been an inner Russian fight, trying to discredit the Kremlin.
        It’s far from clear who was behind it, only that much is clear.

  • rg says:

    This web site is definitely not the place to get your information and interpretation of geopolitics, especially regarding Putin.

  • Will Duffay says:

    I see the Putin 24/7 disinformation squad has been busy above. As if there were any doubt that Russian agents murdered Litvenenko!

  • Mike-T says:

    Surely the real scandal here is the poor efficacy of London hotel dishwashers?

  • M2N2K says:

    There may be several reasons why somebody would actually believe (or pretend to do so) in the kind of “ANONsense” that keeps appearing on this blog: 1 – never lived and worked in Russia, 2 – never lived and worked in a more civilized country, 3 – lacks intelligence, 4 – gets paid by the “proputganda” machine. Of course it may also be a combination of two or more of these factors.

  • Steve says:

    The chain of replies to this revelation is entertaining. The imagination has no bounds!

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