The other Litvinenko

Fascinating reportage from Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy in the Guardian Weekend supplement, denied front-page in favour of some coke-head Manhattanite. Lack of faith in their story? In the fading buzz of Polonium?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2246124,00.html

The article presents a very different Litvinenko, out of his depth in UK exile, trying ‘to punt his knowledge to private security companies’ whose presence is always enough to get me thinking. Anyone got any good links on these stalwarts?

As Scott-Clark and Levy note: ‘The crime was fixed in the west’s collective imagination as a Putin plot to snuff out a brave dissident, a whistleblower who had stood up to the dark forces emanating from the Kremlin.’ Delicacies inevitably involve the £50bn Russian deposits in the City. But also, even more complexly, Litvinenko’s somewhat desperate and scrubby work on behalf of Berlusconi and the Italian (far) right. Mario Scaramella got him working for the Mitrokhin commission, formed in 2001 by Berlusconi for the purpose of digging up supposed KGB associations in the Italian establishment – ‘in reality a vehicle for smearing Berlusconi’s socialist enemies.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Scaramella.

It was Scaramella dipping Sushi with the Russian at his infamous last meal in Piccadilly Itsu.
According to the journalists, ‘Litvinenko began dredging Italy’s underworld, which had links with the Russian and Ukrainian criminal clans, which in turn had powerful connections in the Kremlin.’ These attempts to link the Italian Left and the KGB took them onto dangerous ground. General Anatoly Trofimov’s comment in 2000: ‘Prodi is our man in Italy’, proves invaluable. Trofimov has since been assassinated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1457554,00.html

The whole thing once again suggests the bizarre extent to which the cold war endures in sunny Italy. In comes Robert Seldon Lady – undercover CIA agent accused of ‘rendering’ an Imam to Egypt where he was tortured as a terror suspect. Litvinenko and Mitrokhin help dig him out of trouble. A google search turns up this great little investigative site:

http://cryptome.org/lady-eyeball.htm
Plus: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/08/321321.html

Litvinenko and Scaramella repeat the Prodi allegations on camera. In comes Gerald Batten, a British MEP from the UK independence party. He meets Litvinenko, Itsu, March 9th. Four days later Batten demanded an inquiry into Prodi at the European Parliament. This causes uproar in Italy with general election imminent and Prodi threatening to sue them. Scott-Clark and Levy don’t mention that his intervention comes up tops on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHJhsIOY0zU

Berlusconi’s forced to wind up the Mitrokhin Commission. Prodi wins....This is only a selection of the events explored in the feature. Well worth a look.