| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"towelie" |
| Date: |
14 Dec 2004 07:01:47 PM |
| Object: |
How long until the Repubs start emulating the Russians? |
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=535&ncid=535&e=4&u=/ap/20041214/ap_on_re_eu/russia_poison_problem
Suspicions Cast on Russia After Poisoning
MOSCOW - In the bloodstained post-Soviet period, feuds over money and power
have often been solved by bullets or bombs. But confirmation that Ukrainian
opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was disfigured by dioxin draws attention
to suspicious cases in Russia in which poison may have been used to silence
political foes and settle business scores.
As Yushchenko's supporters suggest Russian involvement in the attempt to
hurt or kill him, critics of the Kremlin say poisoning is a Soviet-era
practice that seems to have reappeared since ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin
became president and put many of his colleagues from the spy agency into
positions of power.
"The list is rather long, and since Putin assumed power in Russia, poisoning
has been one of the preferred political tools used by the Kremlin," said
Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent Russian military affairs analyst.
Yuri Shchekochikhin, a liberal Russian lawmaker and journalist who crusaded
against corruption, died in July 2003 after apparently suffering a severe
allergic reaction. Colleagues suspect he was poisoned, probably in
connection with his reports on a case involving customs officials and
allegations that a furniture store evaded millions of dollars in import
duties.
Russia's chief prosecutor's office told Shchekochikhin's colleagues at the
Novaya Gazeta newspaper and at the Yabloko political party there was no
evidence he was poisoned, Yabloko spokeswoman Yevgenia Dilendorf said. But
she said a British laboratory that conducted tests for the paper and the
party found that there were signs of poison.
"We unequivocally believe that Shchekochikhin was poisoned," said Vyacheslav
Izmailov, a reporter and columnist at the paper.
Izmailov said the same was true for Anna Politkovskaya, a Novaya Gazeta
journalist and Kremlin critic who fell seriously ill with symptoms of food
poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia
during the hostage crisis in Beslan. At least two other journalists accused
authorities of trying to stop them from covering the standoff.
Izmailov points a finger at Russian intelligence agencies such as the
Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor of the KGB.
He and Felgenhauer also said Chechen rebels held in Russian jails have been
poisoned. While those cases have not been confirmed, the FSB has said its
operatives killed Omar Ibn al-Khattab, a Saudi-born militant who fought
alongside the rebels in Chechnya and died in 2002. Khattab's relatives say
he was poisoned.
"Poisoning is not the only method the security services use to remove people
who are inconvenient for them, but it's one of them," Izmailov said.
Felgenhauer said Russian security forces showed their propensity for using
lethal substances when they pumped a knockout gas into a Moscow theater
seized by Chechen rebels in 2002. Most of the 129 deaths of hostages were
attributed to the gas.
"These substances were mostly developed during Soviet times, under the
auspices of the KGB," Felgenhauer said. "And the specialists who designed
these kinds of poisons and ways of applying them were trained during Soviet
times."
The most notorious Soviet-era case of political poisoning allegedly
involving the KGB was that of Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov, who died in
London in 1978 after a pellet containing ricin was injected into his thigh -
purportedly by a jab with a rigged umbrella.
The alleged cases of poisoning in the former Soviet Union are not limited to
Russia. In Belarus, where critics of authoritarian President Alexander
Lukashenko have disappeared and are feared dead, the wife of opposition
leader Gennady Karpenko has claimed he was poisoned shortly before his death
in 1999.
Associates of Yushchenko speculate that Russian or former KGB agents may
have been involved in poisoning the candidate. Yushchenko fell ill in
September and has campaigned with his face disfigured by what doctors who
treated him in Austria said last week was poisoning by dioxin.
Supporters say Yushchenko's opponents wanted to kill him or sideline him
from the race against Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was backed by
outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and the Kremlin, which holds great
influence in the former Soviet republic of 48 million people.
The Kremlin has had no reaction to the developments surrounding Yushchenko's
health. Kuchma's spokeswoman Olena Gromnystka had no comment when asked if
Kuchma had anything to do with the poisoning. Yanukovych reacted by saying
he sympathized with his rival, that he wished him "no evil" and demanded a
thorough investigation.
Some suspected poisonings do not appear politically motivated. Around the
same time Yushchenko was sickened, prominent St. Petersburg security company
chief Roman Tsepov died after suffering symptoms of severe food poisoning.
Russian media reported that Tsepov was murdered with a massive dose of a
leukemia drug, though prosecutors said Tuesday they have not confirmed he
was poisoned.
A company run by Tsepov once provided security to Putin when he was a
bureaucrat in St. Petersburg, but that was not seen as a factor in his
death. Tsepov survived three assassination attempts in the 1990s and had
ties to lucrative businesses that could have made him a target.
Nevertheless, the small but growing list of suspected cases shows that
poisoning is "not random - that it's a way of dealing with political
leaders," Dilendorf said.
It's frightening, she said, "because it means that it's possible to dispose
of anyone and go unpunished - absolutely unpunished. And it's very hard to
prove."
--
"Them white boys had me on crystal meth" - some crackhead in GTA:SA
aa #2133
ap #19
.
|
|
| User: "stoney" |
|
| Title: Re: How long until the Repubs start emulating the Russians? |
15 Dec 2004 06:28:25 PM |
|
|
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 19:01:47 -0600, "towelie" <bugoNOSPAM@hotmail.com>
wrote:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=535&ncid=535&e=4&u=/ap/20041214/ap_on_re_eu/russia_poison_problem
Suspicions Cast on Russia After Poisoning
No need. The rabid spin machine takes care of everything.
[]
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
