This murder was an act of terrorism
alexhilton Wed Nov 29, 2006 at 09:47:29 PM GMT 
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I am not a criminologist. However, anecdotally, I understand it is common for premeditated murderers to try to cover their tracks.
Yet in the case of Alexander Litvinenko's assassination, it is clear that his death was only one intended outcome. Perhaps the more significant goal was to send a message to others around the world that they can be found and despatched in the most gruesome and painful of manners.
And the nature of polonium 210 is itself terror inducing. I won't repeat what has been said in the mainstream media about the substance, but if you ever wanted to know what the government means when they refer to a "dirty" nuclear bomb, they are talking about something like polonium 210 packed with an explosive.
The terror threat for us is that this substance is at large on our streets; that somebody has agents in London able to build and deploy a dirty nuclear bomb, put it in a briefcase and leave it in a crowded place. It doesn't even have to be a large bomb, just big enough to spread thousands of particles of this dreadful poison.
This is why we must hope that our government brings to justice this killer and anyon else responsible for the execution of Alexander Litvinenko.
There has been a lot of tentative discussion about the likelihood of the Russian government being behind this assassination and the ramifications of this are very worrying indeed. Russian agents were accused of poisoning Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko before he was elected to that office. Furthermore, there has recently been a row with the former Soviet republic of Georgia, whose government named the Russian agents it accused of terrorist operations in South Ossetia.
Circumstantially, this puts the Russian government at number one in the list of suspects, not least because it is unthinkable that the polonium could have originated outside that small list of countries with the greatest nuclear expertise.
Yet if evidence does emerge that implicates Russia, that could trigger a diplomatic row that could take decades to heal. Who would be on our side? Would we seeks sanctions? Would Russia turn off the gas flow to Europe and freeze us into submission? Such an escalation could take us back to the cold war and force satellite countries to choose sides.
I can't imagine the international powers would allow matters to go that far, but if it emerges that "rogue elements" in the Russian security services are behind this murder, I for one will suspect a cover up.
This death of one British Citizen could yet be the most important death our generation witnesses. We can only hope Russia's hands are clean.
