Polonium Traces Found In Boris Berezovsky's Offices

Wow, talk about spectacularly bad timing on the last post. His offices have been cordoned off.

Was Buchanan right?

I think that's very unlikely. There's an obvious way the poison could get to these offices -- Alex Goldfarb, Litvenenko's friend, the one who'd recorded his deathbed statement, works for Berezovsky. So, you know, you got a guy spending time with Litvinenko and working with Berezovsky. Seems to be a more plausible explanation than Boris Bezervosky poisoning his ally Litvinenko and then fraiming Putin for the crime (relying upon tricky-dick Scotland Yard investigators to actually identify the rare toxin, of course).

AJ Strata actually buys this theory-- that Berezovsky's framing Putin. (Minus the anti-semtism I implied.) I don't -- it's too tricksy by half -- but he did predict the poison trail would lead to Berezovsky's offices, and so it did.

Thanks to Larwyn for that update.

The Question... turns, I guess, upon whether the detection of the Polonium-210 was inevitable, likely, unlikely, or very unlikely, and perhaps the result of merest serendipity.

If it's inevitable or likely that tests would detect the toxin, it makes it more likely this is a frame-up job.

It it were unlikely or very unlikely the exact toxin would be identified, it makes it more likely this is just what it seems to be -- another Kremlin poisoning against a dissident.

The media has told us it's a very rare toxin, that it decays quickly, etc., but they haven't told us: Is screening for this a part of any western medical protocol when a toxin is suspected? If so, how far down the protocol is the test called for? How expensive a test is required to find it? How often is Polonium 210 tested for in mysterious poisonings?

Is the test on the protocols at all, or was the toxin only searched for because an expert suggested, "Well, this is pretty unlikely, but if you haven't found the poison yet, there's a bunch of radioactive heavy metals you may want to try looking for..." ?

I'm assuming that it's more of the latter, based on how long it took to identify.

But maybe that assumption is wrong.

In the meantime, there's more Polonium turning up in London than OJ DNA at Rockingham.

posted by Ace at 06:30 PM

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