22 Nov 2006

Doctors in dark on poisoned ex-spy

'Alexander Litvinenko lying in a hospital Monday in a photograph distributed by his family. The Kremlin denied suggestions that it might be behind his illness.'

Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko has been moved to intensive care in a London hospital after his condition deteriorated, and friends said Monday that they suspected he had been poisoned on Kremlin orders.'  The Moscow Times

'Doctors are still trying to determine how a former Russian spy and prominent Kremlin critic was poisoned, but they have discounted suspicions that the toxic metal thallium was used, hospital officials said Tuesday.

Litvinenko was once a colonel in Russia's Federal Security Service, the FSB. He has been a defender of the Chechen separatists who have battled Moscow's rule for much of the past 15 years, and has accused the government of orchestrating the bombings of a string of apartment buildings as a pretext for its 1999 invasion of the breakaway republic.'  CNN

 

Alexander Litvinenko at Frontline

During a recent debate at the Frontline club , a private members' club for foreign correspondents in London, on the murder of Anna Politkovskya, Mr Litvenenko was filmed standing up from the audience and saying: "I can directly answer you - it is President Putin of the Russian federation who has killed her". He goes on to make several more allegations against both Mr Putin and the Kremlin. (More at Infowars.net)

It is all part of Putin's crackdown on the free Russian Press.  After the murder on Anna Politkovskaya and the poisoning case, now this:

Editor Jailed for His Coverage of Chechnya

Boris Stomakhin
, a Moscow journalist was sentenced to five years in prison Monday on charges of inciting ethnic hatred in reports about the conflict in Chechnya.

Human rights activists and lawyers said the sentence for Boris Stomakhin, editor of Radikalnaya Politika, a Moscow-based monthly newspaper, was unprecedented in its severity.

Stomakhin, who also contributed opinion articles to the rebel Kavkaz Center web site, frequently called the presence of federal troops in Chechnya an "occupation," and compared President Vladimir Putin to Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. More in The Moscow Times