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07

The Man Who Solved His Own Murder

5 August

Alexander Litvinenko in the hospital.

The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the man who solved his own murder, is the crime being discussed in this episode. Joe explains what effect polonium-210 has after being ingested, and Sandra forgets Joe's birthday. Sandra got her information from wikipedia and an article in The Guardian written by Luke Harding.

Audio transcript

Midweek Murders contains graphic and explicit content, listener discretion is advised. You know a funny thing that happened? You gave birth to a live turtle. That would have been funnier, but alas. Would have been funny because turtles are born from eggs. Well you don't know how I live my life. I might have been impregnated by a bird then it still would have been born through an egg dummy. That's the joke. I got home and Bodil had kicked out poop from her litter box into the hallway. I was like, I'm both disgusted and impressed. That is not too shabby, that's a fair distance. Kicking better than the Watford football team. Okay, fuck you. hashtag too soon. Too soon. [Music]

The worst part of this is that I'm gonna ask her for your birthday. But you would rather I forget. The worst part of that is you don't remember when my birthday is. I don't remember when your birthday is, I thought that you would be thrilled! I mean if there was one person I would expect to remember when my birthday is, it would be my best fucking friend. You sound like my mom, I can't even remember my own birthday. Okay no, that's not okay. Is it the fourth of September? Not even fucking close mate. [Laughter] I believe you. Oh it's hilarious. How long have we known each other now? I don't know that either man. Bet you don't celebrate our fucking friend-iversary. I don't use facebook. Do you know how long we've been friends? I know when your fucking birthday is though. [Laughter] When is it? The 9th of march. Well that just shut me up didn't it. Yeah, suck a dick bitch. [Laughter] I mean you're right, I don't want any undue attention or focus brought to it, but you know you could at least still fucking remember. You could at least remember the day that you're meant to forget. [Laughter] I'm sorry, I know it's in september somewhere. It's very, very easy to remember. It's the day after 9 11. So is it the 10th? Oh good lord. Just go back over what i said in your head, and then go back over what you said, and realize why that is so incredibly wrong. I don't know what you're saying you're talking in dolphin pitch. Oh god, I can't breathe. I almost peed myself. I realized it's the 12th [Laughter] which kind of speaks to the whole "I can't remember any kind of date or month" thing that i didn't realize that 9 11 was written the other way around. It wasn't the 9th of november. Because in sweden we write it the other way around. Yeah, like the rest of the world. Yeah, that was hilarious but also painful. [Laughter] Also, I know what day of the week I was born on. Just a fun fact for you, because the day after was friday the 13th. Oh yeah! You say "oh yeah" like you knew that the 12th of september in 1991 was a thursday. No, I just meant that it's kind of, it's a bit of a spoiler to your whole life isn't it? No, no it isn't. Although you were quite a happy child weren't you? Fuck knows, I've repressed it all. So they didn't know that you would come into the world and just hate it? They didn't know I would come into the world as demon spawn.

Oh god I almost died. Unlike Alexander Litvinenko who did. You're listening to midweek murders, prepare for a bumpy ride. It's gonna be a bumpy ride. Don't pretend like you know harry potter films. I did know that one. That needs work. I did it perfectly, thank you very much. Exactly like you did. oh feel slow oh i'm dying how how cheesy i'm dying already i'm afraid that we're gonna have to include the 9 11 moment because i died inside because that's the only decent banter we've got. but people are gonna be so annoyed i mean how many american bots do we have listening like five more canadian than american which is funny yeah so they're not gonna care yeah true they're just gonna apologize under their breath and carry on listening sorry about it i was chat i was still in there sorry eh i was still in the shrunken head kind of dialect yeah with a little bit of swedish in there oh god i genuinely almost peed myself when i realized i had no because he couldn't work out simple math you know you don't know me you don't don't even know where when my birthday is you don't even know where i was [Laughter] I had to re-like sit and everything to not pee myself because I realized. I had to practice my pelvic floor exercises. I haven't done that since i was pregnant with the turtle that came out as a live birth. I thought you were gonna say as a live bird. Turtles aren't birds. Well you say that, but just because their young are born in eggs, doesn't mean they're a birb.

You're listening to midweek murders which means that it's time to talk about crime. I'm your host sandra and with me is my pal... You did it wrong. Then tell me how I'm supposed to just say it! I am your host sandra and then stop and then i can say and i'm your host don't leave me with just a one word response because i can't give my best with a one word reply this is simple economics fucking every week jesus christ and you've got a theater background do you ever write a script and you just have someone walk on stage and then just say hello and walk off again no because there's no drama with that when i leave you with the i'm your sandra you just don't see anything you don't stop you're like as i have to talk about crying i'm your host sandra and here's my friend joe that's the way uh-huh uh joe lies it no joe doesn't like it from the top final take, midweek murders take two. Aaaaand action. you're listening to midweek murders which means that it's time to talk about crime i'm your host sandra and i'm your co-host joe. See? Wasn't that fucking hard was it? you're the one who always makes it an issue because you fuck it up every week.

this week we're gonna talk about the man who solved his own murder and no it wasn't joe because i'm still alive and kicking so i got my information from a article in the guardian written by luke harding wikipedia and a bbc timeline of alexander litevinienko's death case i also got my information from the wikiwikibar inquiry which was chaired by sir robert owen who's that yo mama is that like a judge or a prosecutor is he's probably some kind of legal dude legal dude that's that's what we're gonna call him that's that's his uh technical job description okay so the last movement before alexander litvinienko ended up in the hospital was that he went to a lunch meeting with an italian dude that was very strange very strange he had a past of uh lying on his cv, and not like the normal lying that everyone does, a lot of lying. He went to itsu, a known sushi. Sushi. It sounded like i called my mom by her nickname susie. Susie. Do it just like that susie, Oh yeah, like that susie. Sorry I got distracted. Stop being weird about my mom dude. I can't help it, she likes it when i get freaky. So they went to a known sushi restaurant called itsu, a chain restaurant here in london, and then he went to a meeting with one of his friends and a dude that he had only met once at the millennium hotel in london. And it was funny because the guardian article was like, yeah, it was at the governor street. I went to london once with my pals, and we ended up in a taxi going back to our hostel where we were staying at. This was before I lived here and I told the taxi driver that the hostel was on gross vendor street and he didn't get it at all he was like the what I was like the gross vendor street it's right by the thames he was like what the fuck are you talking about what do you mean I was like well if you just take us to the thames i'm sure we can work it out it's close to this tube stage and he was a yes okay when we got closer he was like oh you're trying to say grovner I was like is that how it's pronounced and I think he pissed himself he was laughing so hard end of anecdote are you peeing again no we just didn't find that funny i've heard the story before I know but the listener out hasn't sorry I thought you were expecting a reaction from me yeah but also like you're gonna have to follow [Laughter] I'm stage trained I know, I know. and scene okay so that wasn't funny. Moving swiftly on [Laughter]

He went to the pine bar in london's millennium hotel to meet one of his former friends from the federal security fucking shit I don't think that's their technical service federal security fucking shit service would definitely get arrested by the kgb if you called them I couldn't remember the last letter because I i'm thinking like fbi for some reason i'm i'm um you know brainwashed by the american media yeah what does the fbi stand for federal bureau of investigation gazinga you didn't think I knew that I did it would do if bureau was pronounced for yurio I not say that no you said burio god damn it okay so the the friend that he was meeting was andre lugovio le golf boy lego villa he's an italian russian guy andre lugoyov I knew it I i practiced all of these names before and I brought them down and then they turned italian okay so he went to the bar met his friend and then he also met dimitrov covten who he had only met once before and he said that he didn't like that guy because he had an appearance of being an alcoholic or a drug addict allegedly a little too russian for this russian guy's liking so when they were at the hotel he sat down with lego boy lugoyo lagoyov firstly who he knew from years before and lagoia told him like yeah we're gonna leave soon so there's no point in ordering anything but you can order something if you want or you could just have the tea that's left in the teapot here at our table so he was like okay so he poured the tea into his teacup he said that it there was only like half a cup left in the people and andre asked for a clean cup from the waiter so the waiter brought him a clean cup andre no alexander by the way alexander said to the investigators that he drank maybe three sips or four and then decided that he wasn't gonna drink anymore because it was green tea he said that it was without sugar which why would anyone put sugar in green tea but fair enough and he said that it was cold which is probably the worst part of that tea experience, disregarding the poison obviously.

After that he went home and then starts to feel sick spends the night vomiting and with diarrhea and it doesn't get better so three days after that he gets admitted to the hospital and that first hospital that he was in was the barnett general hospital in north london because he lived in muswell hill which is very close to where I live don't take note of that russian bots you're the next target for the cramland yeah probably vladimir if you're listening we are one of you do not target us thank you please thank you please no I was gonna say that I don't think i'm ever gonna be able to visit moscow but I don't think I would want to either so that's fine I think you're also blacklisted apparently it's a very very pretty place oh yeah it's so pretty it is if you're a russian sympathizer well I see i've seen it on the on the google yeah i've been watching google I was like oh pretty pretty and catherine the great was also her sense of interior design let's call it that was supremely spectacular and pornographic. Added to the bucket list. Would be fun but we're probably never gonna get in now, so you're just gonna have to live with that. You say that as though anybody's listening. Hi Lee, love you. [Laughter] At the hospital, well, he's first in one hospital and then gets transferred to the university college hospital in central london because he's placed in intensive care and also under armed police guard. Because they're starting to suspect a poisoning case. First they thought it was thallium, please tell us a bit about that.

[silence] This is your role, Joe. I have some information. Hit me with that rythm stick. Hit me, hit me. Fantastic, Ich liebe dich, hit me, hit me, hit me. What? Was that a thing in the original song? Yes, fucking google it bitch. Some of the clinical symptoms that he was exhibiting when he was admitted to hospital were synonymous with radiation poisoning in that he was losing his hair, he had vomiting and kidney and renal failure, and so they did quite a few extensive blood tests on him however they were quite quick to rule out thallium poisoning. They did actually test his blood for it, I think, and found that the levels of thallium in his blood weren't clinically significant to indicate the symptoms that he was showing. I don't actually know how long the thallium poisoning was a hypothesis. I read that it was what he was treated for and then they realized that some of the symptoms that he was showing wasn't aligned with thallium poisoning. Yeah, they treated him for thallium poisoning, and they did, I think it was an x-ray to look at bone density and things like that, and they didn't see conclusive evidence of thallium poisoning other than what they'd administered to treat for it. So I think, and you can correct me on this... I would be glad to. I know you would, you little ravenclaw you. That was patronizing.jpg. They found... and this is the part where I think you will correct me... they found an isotope in his pee that they first ruled out as like circumstantial, and then they asked for a larger pee sample, urine sample sorry, this is why I'm like a bit apprehensive about saying this, but i think they ruled it out because there's polonium and things around us. I was like where the fuck is the polonium in things around us? It can't be circumstantial, what? Is there polonium in things around us? No. But shortly, no. So what I think they probably found in his urine samples was lead. Yeah, probably. Rather than polonium. So when polonium degrades gives off all of its alpha radiation it turns into lead. Oh, okay. And it's perfectly normal to have small amounts of lead exposure to be found in blood and urine samples. Because there can't be like radioactive things around us, so it must have been lead. Well there are radioactive things around us all the time. We have a base level of radiation exposure constantly, when you rule out things like the gamma radiation from the sun which is radioactive exposure, there's always a baseline level of radioactivity just from natural rocks and things, I think. So what you're saying is that we are in the midst of making superheroes, right? That's what you're saying? No. You will... I'm gonna have a baby... You will not turn into the hulk just from walking around. No, I know, it was just it would have been funny though. It wouldn't have been funny because we would have a shit ton of hulks. My turtle bird baby is going to be the first superhero. Your turtle bird baby is probably because you've been swimming around in nuclear sewage, which is more likely to kill you than it is to make your offspring a superhero. Hey don't yuck my yum. I don't know what that means, but I'm gonna do it. All right, okay, so I think the initial tests that were from Litvinenko's urine probably would have shown an abnormal amount of lead, but also lead exposure is far more common than polonium exposure, so any of that radioactivity that has degraded will have turned into a more common element. And that's perhaps why they weren't so concerned to start with. Yeah, a radioactive isotope poisoning. I think they did ask for a larger urine sample. They did blood tests too. Yeah just before he died and then they found out that it was polonium. Is that incorrect? I don't know what tests they took in the hospital, but I know his post-mortem results were pretty much conclusive that it was polonium. Yeah.

Fun fact, maybe not fun because you seem to be a tough crowd tonight. Well i'm gonna tell it anyways. Is that sweden was the first country to expose the whole chernobyl disaster because they got pings in their thing imagings. I'm pretty sure it was ukraine that was the first country to be exposed to the chernobyl disaster, given that it happened in ukraine. Exposed, I said expose, no, that's the same word. I just realized, I mean exposed it to the media. Oh so you mean detect? Yeah because russia, well they knew about it in russia, they just had it in a hush hush. And then sweden was like... Because ukraine was part of russia back then. Yeah, and then sweden was like wait a minute, there's shit loads of radioactive thing-imagings in the air. This is not normal. That's definitely not a fun story, the chernobyl exposure was horrific. Very much an international disaster. And then you're gonna tell me that 9 11 was a date that I should have remembered just like your birthday. Apologies to the american bots for my co-hosts insensitivity to your national disasters. It was horrible obviously, I remember it when it was on the tv. No you don't. I do! You thought it was in november, you don't remember shit. I remember seeing the news about it, but not as it's ingrained in american culture. Oh say can you see by the dawns early light. That's for you american bots, love you guys. I did also remember that my mom was like, oh shit, they've told us that like people born when my oldest brother was born has been affected by the radiation from the chernobyl disaster. And I'm like, yeah, that's horrible obviously. But she was afraid that my brother, like afraid of his exposure to it, I'm like he seems fine. Yeah, I know people that need to have annual blood tests to determine their radiation levels to see if they're still alive. It was definitely a thing that generations of people keep having problems with still to this day. And I can't really understand that because of the fact that the polonium that alexander was poisoned with was so traceable, and still, it doesn't seem like that has been a big deal. So in terms of the longevity of risk it very much depends on what kind of radioactive isotope you're dealing with. So all sorts of different elements have different radioactive half-lives. So the half-life of polonium is about 130 days, I think, 135. Something like that. Which basically means that if you have one gram of polonium in 130 days it will have degraded enough to be half a gram of polonium and half a gram of whatever it degrades into, I think in this case it's lead. For other radioactive isotopes, and we can use the example of radium. Radium has a half-life of 1005 years. Oh, so that's probably what happened in the chernobyl disaster, like... Yeah and that's why particularly with these disasters, that they're such high profile international concern, because they're usually using things that have a longer half-life than polonium. I think that's got quite a short half-life compared to most of the isotopes that are used in nuclear reactors.

Because like, I remember from the witness statement that they took from alexander before he died, so he said that he sat at that table had the tea just a couple of clunks of it, like swallows of it, and then Andrei took his eight-year-old child to him and said this is your uncle sasha, which is like a nickname of alexander or like a term of endearment of alexander, I think, in russia. And he said say hello to him and then his eight-year-old child shook his hand and then they went to a football game, which was probably the cover of why they said they were going to the uk. Yeah, and they used that as an excuse. I think it was chelsea versus cska in moscow. Yeah or arsenal. I don't remember. But yeah, it might have been arsenal. Yeah but also like, when they realized that it was a polonium poisoning case, the met in the uk checked his sleeve from his suit that he was wearing on the day of the meeting, and his sleeve was so radioactive. So Andrei, I don't know how much he knew about like the poison. It felt like he was like yeah, shake his hand eight-year-old son, and the eight-year-old son did, but it was poisonous. It's been hypothesized that both Dmitry and Andrei didn't actually know how contaminated they would be by handling the polonium. There's quite a lot both in the inquiry and on the wikipedia page. There was a couple of different assassination attempts. Yeah, they tried three times, once in mid-october and they put it in his tea and he literally didn't drink it. The second was at the end of october, the theory is that there were too many cameras around where they were trying to administer the dose. And both of those occasions they ended up disposing of their polonium down the toilet, and it was completely traceable. So they found exactly the hotel room that was contaminated with polonium, the flights from moscow to london and london to moscow were contaminated. So the theory is that both Dmitry and Andrei didn't actually know the level of risk that they were accepting when they took on the case of attempted murder, and eventually successful murder, of Litvinenko. I thought it was quite funny that the bbc, no, the guardian article by Luke Harding said that assassins nowadays isn't really on the same level of the assassins during the KGB. And I thought that that was quite funny that it was like, well they didn't do a very good job did they. Because it was like yeah they could trace all of this, because of the radiation, it was so clearly laid out for them. Yeah.

And when alexander told the investigators from the uk what had happened he obviously being a former secret agent know everything about like how to describe what he was doing at what day, and how they looked, and how they acted, and what they did, he remembered everything in clear detail. And it's actually really interesting from a forensic point of view, in that as far as I'm aware from what I could find in my research, there is only one worldwide site that creates polonium 210 for either scientific, economic, or whatever kind of use, there is only one place in the world that creates polonium 210 and it happens to be exactly the same place that the polonium 210 that was used in the murder of was found and you can trace that back to the impurities that are found in that particular sample so polonium-210 isn't a naturally occurring substance you can't just like dig it out of the ground or extract it from the air it needs to go through a specific scientific process to be able to obtain it from things like bismuth and other things that are naturally obtainable and that polonium has like a specific fingerprint so you'll never be able to get pure polonium 210 it will always have some kind of fingerprint with other kind of diluents and contamination effects and the only place in the world that produces it which is a specific site in russia also had the exact fingerprint of the polonium that was found to be used for litvinyenko's death yeah i found that interesting because it's like they don't even try anymore they don't care are you telling me you missed the days of the kgb no what i'm telling you is that because i'm sure there are plenty of russian bots out there that would argue the days of the KGB were absolute tyranny. listen to our podcast you will be like yeah that's what we're trying to resurrect no i'm just saying that times bro good times what i'm saying is that they aren't even trying to cover their tracks as we said before the polonium was traced with the help of the cctv of the hotel to the two russian guys that he was in a meeting with they traced them with cctv up to the men's bathroom they knew exactly which cubicle they were in when they administered the poison to the tea they knew which table they sat at how much of the kitchen appliances that was contaminated at the time they knew about the one guy that he had only met once wait a minute i'm trying to look up the name computing dmitry kovton he goes up to his hotel room he tries to flush the polonium down the drain it gets stuck in the drain they trace all of this like they can find all of that because of the radioactiveness of the substance like it's not even hard.

and then why they do this i think is because they can't do anything the uk was like you need to extradite Andrei Logovoy to the uk to stand trial for the murder they were not like no we won't do that but it's against russian law to extradite russian citizens so the russians said no and then the uk were like okay yeah but that's what i mean they they don't give a shit anymore because nobody can do anything well that's what happens when you vote conservative they invaded ukraine and then they were like what are you gonna do about it everyone was like oh this is horrific this is fine we don't need to get the un involved that's what i mean the whole purpose of the u.n is to protect all of its united nations but no no it's fine russia you can do what you like you're big and scary you've got a guy that fights bears without a shirt well that's what they always do but also like alexander poor guy he did his best to aid the investigation and to lead the investigators in the right track of who he had been talking to and meeting at the during the day and stuff like that but the problem is that alexander was like yeah you remember this world when i die that putin did this to me because he wanted to quiet down critiques of putin like he doesn't do that like putin is like no everyone who criticized me is dead and everyone is like okay like we all know what happened and yet nobody does anything about it and that is a bit concerning it's the same as the salisbury case that we covered previously in the it was an ex-russian spy who came to the uk and was given uk citizenship and protection and then some random guys from russia come over and attempt murder and just say that they're gonna look at football or the salisbury cathedral then everyone is like fine. oh yeah. Like how obvious do you need to make a murder case if you're from russia before the uk government will be like okay this is a state-sponsored murder we're not okay with this how many people could have been poisoned at the hotel how many people in the NHS could have been poisoned at the hospital.

actually it's interesting that you should mention that because i've got a little bit of science in science you'll say oh oh yeah i hope you're sitting down because i'm about to blow your world so polonius which as aforementioned is the substance that was used to kill it vignenko actually doesn't have that higher toxicity when exposed to skin which is why the son of persons aforementioned logo boy lagoyev lagoyev [Laughter] that's why both lagoyev and Kovtun and all of the people that were involved in the murder weren't affected by the polonium themselves even though they left massive traces all across the world putin if you're listening sort your agents out they're fucking shit anyway the reason litvanyenko suffered such extreme conditions and eventual death compared to the agents that handled it is that the actual dermal exposure of polonium isn't lethal so polonium-210 can actually only move through the skin about 40 microns which is only a couple of skin layers deep so when you get exposed to it through contact on the skin it's not lethal the reason lit vanienko was murdered was because he ingested it through the t which then becomes internal exposure and becomes much more deadly yeah so it's interesting to know the lethal dose of ingested polonium versus how much they administered so the lethal dose uh the ld50 the lethal dose for a median of 50 of the population is less than one microgram from what i can tell it's uh 0.09 micrograms your typical grain of salt so one single grain of salt is 60 micrograms so you picture a typical grain of salt from your salt dispenser 60 micrograms the lethal dose of polonium is 0.09 micrograms so that three to four swallows of that tea was like 100 000 milligrams yeah what's even more interesting is when you convert micrograms into the standard unit for radiation which is becquerel it's 15 mega becquerels so 15 000 becquerels the dose that was administered into his t was 4.4 giga becquerels oh good lord so they absolutely overwhelmed his tea with polonium and in his post-mortem they found 49 000 becquerels per gram of tissue in his kidneys oh good lord so the kidneys main function is to filter your blood for toxins that's pretty much what your kidneys do and you pee it out afterwards so for the post mortem to find 49 000 becquerels is basically equivalent to 49 mega becquerels in his kidneys so that's what he has absorbed and filtered through his kidneys now remember that the lethal dose is 15 mega becquerels and he had 49 mega becquerels just in his kidneys so he was absolutely annihilated with polonius they said that they can't treat radioactive or polonium exposure with prussian blue which i was like isn't that a cat that's a russian blue oh yeah yeah so prussian blue it's basically a generic radiation poisoning solution i wouldn't say it was a cure because it doesn't always work the prussian blue is actually what they detected in his x-ray when they treated him for thallium poisoning so they'd already administered the prussian blue to prevent the poisoning right back at the beginning when they thought it was thallium but obviously the dosages that he received was so high that there was literally nothing they they could have done to save him the post-mortem couldn't even identify a single cause of death they overall summarized that it was undeniably caused by polonium poisoning it was murder it was definitely murder but the final mode of death could have been any four number of factors so typically with radiation poisoning you would get bone marrow failure and in this case his bone marrow failure led to sepsis which increased his risk of cardio respiratory arrest you also get multiple organ failure and he also suffered direct radiation on the heart which caused the fatal heart rate which would have led to cardio respiratory arrest or it could have been a combination of all three of those factors and the reason why they can't rule any of those out is the way that alpha particles work in the postmortem these were described as a cellular bullet so it's essentially like firing a bullet on the cellular level in the it hits a cell and absolutely destroys it and just keeps on going until it runs out of energy yeah and it's also like i remember watching chernobyl and nicholas said that well it's a bit over the top how they cinematically like show the radiation poisoning symptoms but then i googled what does it actually look like and it was horrific like the actual yeah it really is so the chernobyl tv series i haven't seen it myself but from what i've heard they did a really accurate interpretation of what radiation poisoning looks like so what we expect from radiation poisoning is i think mainly from the media in terms of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in that we expect someone to have a bit of vomiting to lose their hair and their eyebrows and things like that and basically for most of their bodily functions to to start struggling when you're actually exposed to chernobyl levels of radiation or lithium levels of radiation if you take chernobyl the amount of radiation that was given off for those reactors is enough for people's skin to start sloping off yeah that's what happened in the series yeah people can lose their skin cells and it just starts peeling away from their body what litvinyenko experienced was mass internal organ failure you can kind of see that in the last photo of him before he died because he's very yellow yeah so the yellow will come from his liver failure so his liver was exposed to massive amounts of radiation which means it can't break down any of the bilirubin which causes jaundice it's the same with alcoholics once you start exhibiting liver failure you start becoming more jaundiced and you start showing that orange yellow hue a la trump i'm pretty sure that is like some kind of fake tan though oh that's definitely fake tan yeah unfortunately i wish he had liver failure and i don't really care it's mostly canadian bots and russian.

i'm not gonna say like i'm not gonna go into the whole reddit thing now but what i wanted to say is that people still think that he was killed by a russian oligarch that he was friends with that he put on the hit for him and i'm like please the evidence is overwhelming the evidence is overwhelming that coveton and lagoyev committed the crime of assisted murder it's still up in the air as to who that was authorized by there's been no overwhelming evidence that it was authorized by the kremlin well the mi6 records that were released like 10 years after his actual death kind of cemented the fact that it was ordered by the kremlin who's to say that a russian oligarch who wouldn't have had that power within the kremlin to also authorize that attack but i'm just playing devil's advocate here because we've got no definitive evidence to say that putin authorized this assassination even though the evidence overwhelmingly points in that direction in a uk court of law it's not enough to say that this was authorized by the kremlin but i would also like to say if any redditors are listening that the whole thing in russia they pointed the blame at alexander's friend who was ostracized and condemned by the russian government he lives in england because he's a political he had political asylum or he got like uh political asylums the right word yeah he was being prosecuted by putin and to point the blame on him is to say that well we didn't have anything to do with it it was his friend who also got his visa for him and who also paid his salary i just don't believe it because it feels like it's no and i think it's also interesting to note that once litvinienko was assigned asylum in the uk he was incredibly outspoken about putin's regime yeah to the extent that he was publishing books and journal articles and media reports about all kinds of different atrocities that were happening under the russian regime and like the salisbury case it seems to be like any kind of former russian agent that defects then becomes a target for putin's regime to silence effectively and i would also like to point out the fact that he was a employee of the MI6 to give them information about the russian government he also coined the phrase the mafia state to describe what putin does in russia he was also very outspoken about his friend getting murdered in russia because of her outspokenness against putin and he was also two weeks or one week away from testifying in the spanish court about like russian mafia and their connections to the kremlin in spain because the russian mafia was there as well and like i i would just like to get that said because i can't stand all of the conspiracy theories on reddit etc about like well no it wasn't putin alexander was like in too deep with his oligarch friend it's russian propaganda to say that he was killed by his friend well he was kind of killed by his friend i wouldn't i wouldn't go so far as to call Logovoy Litvinenko's french well they kind of i would say they were colleagues yeah they were colleagues but they say the russian propaganda machine is saying that he was killed by his russian friend that was also ostracized which we completely support russian bots we are totally in agreement that he was murdered by his friend and we are not criticizing putin long live putin we should post that photo of him on a bear like shirtless that should be the image for this episode [Laughter] we're in compliance [Laughter] don't hate us we love you china free tibet wait what who said that oh god

yeah have you seen those videos about people who are like yeah the best way to take care of your plants is to please free tibet please look up the thing with the muslim minority people who are getting oh yeah the uh i don't know how to pronounce it but it's spelled like voyagers actually it's it's interesting that you mentioned the muslim community in china the um so i presume you're sure you saw the drone footage of them all being led into trains with the shaved heads and all of that yeah probably it was that on reddit it was on reddit probably the bbc hosted an interview with the ambassador for china uh live in the studio they showed him this footage and he was like where did you get this footage this footage could have been from anywhere this what um and it took him like five minutes to come up with a reason and then he was like oh yeah no i've got it i've got it i've got it there's a i've got a perfectly rational explanation it's it's a prisoner transfer we do it all the time everybody does it it's completely normal just just ignore my five minutes of internal thinking where i come up for a rational excuse as to why we're literally being the nazis yeah yeah i know some of it like i've read some of the articles and the exposes about the situation it it seems super super super bad and now we're gonna be followed by the chinese spots as well well the more listeners the merrier yeah it's it's super bad in china i'm a massive supporter of kim jong-un i know it's north korea they're both communist dictatorships i thought you were gonna say they're both and then something way worse that comes well it's a true story brah true bro i mean you can leave that in i don't even care we're gonna be banned from so many countries just just put that at the beginning yeah so that's kind of it that's a story i feel like maybe i didn't say that alexander lit benienko saw his own murder by being like yeah i did this i met those people i did that and very and like described their outfits everything like he was a very very astute person well he was trained by the kgb back when they were good yeah and he also yes and he also said like apologies for ussr states who have been subjected to russian tyranny they're awful they've always been awful but also like they were terrible but long live russia but noah but what i wanted to say is that he was he was very good in his own investigation he was like yeah this is what happened blah blah blah yes he knew it'd been poisoned i feel like putin can do whatever he wants and people just not care obviously or he'll take his shirt off and wrestle you nobody wants that and it helps that his main political opposition is an orangutan in a wig and the biggest pile of humpty dumpty shit that the uk has ever elected to be a prime minister basically the only person that is holding putin in his place right now is angela merkel and to be fair i mean she's a very scary german lady but she ain't going last forever i wish i was more like trump he's obviously a bag of dicks but just because he's like everything he doesn't want to deal with he's like fake news and i'm like everything is shit it's just false media we're doing we're doing the greatest with kovid like all of these other countries they're just not even testing and we're doing the most testing and that's the reason why our numbers are so high is because we're just doing the most testing yeah oh i'm so sweaty i should i haven't taken my meds yet so i need to go get ready for be it thinking about me oh fucking house 10 past 11. yeah yeah jesus christicles jesus christicals jesus god bars it's happening god damn do you want to go say goodbye to the listeners oh i thought we'd [Laughter] [Music] love you see you next week bye [Music]

Topics
  • true crime podcast uk
  • Alexander Litvinenko
  • true crime cases uk
  • polonium 210
  • polonium poisoning
  • podcasts uk
  • comedy
  • assassinations
  • political assassinations
  • raditation posioning
  • radiation exposure
  • russian spies
  • KGB
  • spies
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