Secret Agent

So it seems that the isotope that killed the former Soviet Spy Alexander Litvinenko has been identified. As reported by New Scientist here:

Litvinenko's death at the age of 43 from heart failure in a London hospital last Thursday was linked to traces of polonium-210 found in his urine by the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA). An inquest into his death is due to open later this week.

The interesting thing about this is that the choice of weapon is an almost certain indicator that whomever it was that killed this man had access to nuclear programs in 1 of 3 countries that used the isotope as a component for nuclear weapons [That would be the US, the UK, and Russia--ed].

And given the isotopes short half-life, one can rule out that this is some random attack perpetrated by someone who found some of this stuff on a shelf:

Other experts point out that, since its half-life is 138 days, the polonium-210 was probably made in the recent past. "It would become less usable as years went by and after five years would be useless," says Philip Day, an environmental radiochemist from the University of Manchester.

The Independent is reporting on the fact that some UK ministers are now starting to come out of the closet with their concerns about the involvement of Putin's government in this issue. Some off-the-record assertions have been made that Russian agents were the ones who carried out the poisoning.

Some security sources in Britain suspect that Russian agents - or a rogue element within the country's security services - were behind Mr Litvinenko's death.

Of course, these are all speculations. Those of you who read the Wikipedia article on Litvinenko that I linked to above will see that the Soviet era spy agencies have only one documented instance of killing a defector outside of the country.

Rupert Allason, the British intelligence expert, commented that he would be most surprised if the FSB had tried to kill Mr Litvinenko because it would fly in the face of 65 years of Soviet or Russian practice[.]

Of course, President Putin's Russia is suffering criticism for rolling back civil rights, so could this be a start of a new policy of not tolerating dissent abroad? Only time will tell. But the use of such a specialized weapon makes me lean towards believing that Mr. Litvinenko was speaking what he believed to be the truth on his death bed when he accused Mr. Putin of being directly involved in his poisoning.