I tend to agree with Allahpundit's assesment on this one,
""In any case, he’s still not a suspect in the poisoning of
Litvinenko, and this arrest tells us very little about who killed him
or why. It does bolster my best theory
wild speculation: that an arms deal was going down, and Putin’s goons
stepped in to stop in a way that would send an unmistakable message to
would-be nuclear smugglers.
I mean, why else would you use ten million dollars worth of easily detectable, slow-acting, exotic poison on a single guy, unless you wanted to make headlines?""
Exactly.
Police do not know why the assassins used so much of the polonium-210, and are investigating whether the poison was part of a consignment to be sold on the black market.
They believe that whoever orchestrated the plot knew of its effects, but are unsure whether the massive amount was used to send a message — it made it easier for British scientists to detect — or is evidence of a clumsy operation.
Clumsy is a gross understatement, polonium has been found in Germany, the UK embassy in Moscow, British Airways flights, a London soccer stadium, over 30 places were tested in London alone. Russia has had a working knowledge of nuclear power for nearly as long as the US, yet are we to believe they would spread polonium all over London just to assassinate Litvinenko?
Then there's Litvinenko's concern with Chechen seperatists and his conversion to Islam.
A recent convert to Islam with an axe to grind with the West wouldn't care about polonium leakage, his own personal safety or the safety of others. All the facts are not in yet, but it seems far fetched that Putin would go to such rediculous lengths and botch the job so badly as to use $10m of polonium to kill one man who had walking the streets of London openly for years.
My guess is we'll never know the whole truth of this case, if Litvinenko was making a dirty bomb, or selling it to Islamic terrorists, the public will be shielded from that information. There is no doubt that if a polonium-like substance got into the wrong hands that it would be used in a terrorist attack, and this may have been an attempt. There have been reports of Litvinenko smuggling radioactive material from Russia to Swtzerland in 2000, and recently.
Telegraph: Police have arrested an Italian man who met with former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill from poisoning, Italian news agencies have reported.
Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples after returning from London, the ANSA and Apcom agencies reported.
Rome prosecutors have allegedly been investigating Mr Scaramella for violating secrets and possible arms trafficking.
Mr Scaramella met with Mr Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on Nov 1, the day the former KGB agent fell ill.
The Italian was later hospitalised for treatment of suspected radiation poisoning, but has since been released.
