The death by Polonium 210 of Alexander Litvinenko is becoming quite an incredible saga, with mysterious deaths, nuclear material loose, high and low spookery, and accusations flying around. Putin has been quickly blamed by a number of people; others have speculated that it is a plot to discredit him, yet others that this is just some eruption of infighting amongst the Russian power circles and/or secret services linked to the succession of Putin in 2008 or even to some other unknown conflict.
One of the strangest bits in this story has been the Italian connection, via a shady character, Marco Scaramella.
Thanks to de Gondi over at the European Tribune, we've had access to a lot of the stories that have been written in the Italian press, and to the context surrounding them.
As it has come out, Scaramella has been linked to destabilisation attempts against Romano Prodi, the center left current Prime Minister, who beat Bush-stooge Berlusconi in a very close election last spring. Count on Fox News to use this story as an opportunity to spew the worst slanders against Prodi (and Russia).
First, a round up of the news over the past two weeks:
Spystory Mania: Litvinenko's "Italian Connection" by eternalcityblues (Nov. 19)
Russia denying involvement (European Breakfast, Nov. 21)
More guesswork about source of poisoning (via Migeru and blackhawk, Nov. 23)
Some Italian and Russia/EU context (European Breakfast, Nov. 24)
Did Litvinenko kill himself (European Breakfast, Nov. 25)
kcurie and polonium by kcurie (Nov. 25)
Must-read on Scaramella by de Gondi (Nov. 26)
More news via Fran from the top of the same European Breakfast thread here (Nov. 26)
Reference to an interview of Limarev by de Gondi (Nov. 26)
More on Scaramella being poisoned himself via de Gondi and Fran (Dec. 2)
More links can be found in this thread (including one that suggests that Litvinenko accused the KGB of being behind the Danish cartoon controversy, as if there were not enough leads in that story already...).
de Gondi did a thorough debunking of the Fox News story in this diary, and I encourage you to go read it in full if you want to have all the details. I'll just use a few money quotes from him.
Blockquotes in italics are from the Fox News article; normal blockquotes are from de Gondi.
Scaramella, [...], is also linked to an investigation of Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, long thought to have had ties to the former Soviet espionage apparatus.
Scaramella is more than linked to several investigations concerning Prodi. He set out to frame Prodi. Framing people with false charges is not the same thing as an investigation. It's called character assassination. Scaramella indicated that Litvinenko and Limarov had revealed to him that Prodi worked for the KGB. Both categorically denied ever having made that accusation. Scaramella then sought to create bogus financial transactions through San Marino that would have linked the Nomisma, a company founded by a group of people that included Prodi, to the Soviet Secret Services.
Further accusations are based on deliberate and fraudulent misrepresentations of the acts of the Berlusconi Mitrokhin Commission, presided over by Senator Paolo Guzzanti. The Italian right wing's continuous use of the authority of institutional offices to concoct illogical and non-existent links rivals Joe McCarthy's 1950's witch-hunt. It's too bad this malicious trash finds its way into the international press.
Prodi,[...], once was the target of an investigation into KGB infiltration of the Italian government[sic]
Romano Prodi was not the target of any investigation but the object of several smear campaigns both on the left and right. He was asked to testify before the Mitrokhin Commission, instituted during the Berlusconi government. He was interrogated in the 58th hearing on April 5th, 2004.
The Mitrokhin Commission investigated alleged KGB activity in Italy based on the 261 scraps of paper Mitrokhin wrote concerning Italy.
(...)
Of the 261 scraps of paper, immediately published by the D'Alema government in October 1999, almost nothing was interesting or revelatory. It appeared the Soviets were far more concerned about Berlinguer's activity as General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party, as well as the Vatican. Much more than any "Italian government." It made good gossip and brushwood for a good deal of satirical writing.
That information revealed how the KGB had successfully recruited 261 leading Italian politicians and journalists.
261 scraps of paper mentioning Italy. Priests, politicians, professors and reporters were named. Fifteen paid informants. Twenty confidential sources. Twenty individuals who were "cultivated.". Four individuals were regularly spied on. All of the spied victims were prominent members of the PCI (Italian Communist party), most notably Enrico Berlinguer. Most of the people fingered as spies or confidents had no problems defending themselves. Or didn't even bother.
Curiously, Scaramella reportedly was meeting with Litvinenko at a London sushi restaurant to tell the former KGB agent that his name was on an assassination list that he'd uncovered.
Both Guzzanti and Scaramella have declared that the list was sent by Euvgenij Limarev. Limarev has categorically denied the charge. Further Limarev details in an interview that it was Scaramella who had asked him about a Russian security agency called "Pride and Dignity" that allegedly had Guzzanti and Scaramella on its hit list. Limarev looked into Scaramella's story, found that "Pride and Dignity" existed and wrote back that Scaramella's hypothesis was plausible. Scaramella then turned it around, making Limarev the source of the tip off- and threw in the names of Anna Politovskaja and Litvinenko as icing. Limarev had never mentioned the two. It's fairly easy to uncover one's very own assassination list.
In short, it is still not known who is Scaramella's real source if not himself, nor why he named Limarev. Or why he sought to associate Guzzanti and himself with the good name of Politovskaja.
Limarev was also indicated by Guzzanti as the source of charges against Prodi as a KGB agent. Limarev denies ever having made such charges.
Not only that, but in that interview, Limarev actually says the following:
What is Scaramella's business?
"Let's say that Mario gathers information".
On whose account?
"I wouldn't be able to say. My sources in Moscow have two different beliefs. He works for the Italian secret services. Or, he's a man of the CIA and of the people who, in the West, want to discredit Putin's Russia".
But back to that Fox News article and de Gondi's debunking:
Prodi's political opponents, meanwhile, have launched several investigations into his financial and political dealings.
Right wing political opponents do not launch investigations, a particular solemn expression usually associated with justice. Right wing political opponents launch smear campaigns. As pointed out by the Repubblica last week, the proper term is "character assassination", not "investigations."
To the contrary there are and have been investigations by judiciary authorities into the activity of Scaramella. Lengthy transcripts of damning conversations between Guzzanti and Scaramella have been published simultaneously by the three major dailies, Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica and la Stampa, the past days.
(...)
Scaramella, of course, can be investigated. He as yet does not enjoy the privilege of impunity. Berlusconi should see to it that Scaramella be elected to parliament as soon as possible. He would be a welcome addition to the eighty-odd parliamentarians (the vast majority representing Berlusconi's personal political entity, Forza Italia, or his coalition) found guilty, let off for statute of limits or on trial for criminal activities before their election. That's one tenth of the Italian parliament.
There's a LOT more in de Gondi's diary about the earlier smear jobs against Prodi, but this is getting long enough already, so let me summarize a few things.
- Litvinenko is dead, and he was killed by Polonium, in amounts sufficiently large to be a worry in itself: we have seen loose weapons-grade (because of the quantities) nuclear material brought into a Western capital, and nobody knows how (or they aren't telling);
- Litvinenko had some kind of relationship with Scaramella, a shady character associated with the dirty underbelly of the Italian secret services, and linked to various attempts to destabilize Romano Prodi, the leader of the left, using Soviet or Russian connections, for the benefit of Berlusconi, a Bush pal;
- Scaramella is also linked to Bob Lady, the Milan CIA agent wanted for the Abu Omar kidnapping. A second CIA agent who collaborated with Scaramella is not named but alluded to. So we have links to renditions, kidnappings and the ugly underworld of the War on Terra;
- The death of Litvinenko has been opportunistically used to put blame on Putin. There's no evidence either way, but the accusations have been loosely made by senior people, including Sen. Joe Biden in a context where a war of words with Russia has been underway for the past year, usually focusing on energy issues, but taking pretext of any news from Russia to paint Putin in the nastiest color possible. (I'm no Putin fan, far from it, but I nevertheless consider the current Putin-bashing to be opportunistically manufactured and linked to energy interests and not to any kind of actual worry about democracy or prosperity for Russians, as claimed)
In that context, that Fox News story just circulates all the lies that have already been debunked officially about Prodi, and that others propagate unsusbtantiated accusations against Putin, appears to be more than a coincidence. There is a lot more than meets the eyes to this story, and I urge all to look for as many sources as possible before coming to any kind of conclusion.