“Sasha is not quite in his right mind.” - MI6 told their Moscow spy - more fairy tales from the land of Litvinenko

The news that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) yesterday instituted criminal proceedings (6/7/07) under the Criminal Code Article 275 (which includes espionage) against Vyacheslav Zharko, a former officer ( 4 yrs experience with rank of Major) of the Russian tax police, throws some more light and probably many more shadows on the Litvinenko affair.

Vyacheslav Zharko admitted he had been recruited by the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) when he voluntarily surrendered in June to the friendly FSB. He claims he was receiving about 2,000 Euros in cash monthly (which apparently he did not declare for tax purposes !) for writing surveys for the British side “fishing out information from various Internet sites.” It was only when he realised what a small fish he was, in a big game he decided to "come clean". It also followed on from May 31st news conference given by Andrei Lugovoi, (accused by the UK Crown Prosecution Service on May 22 of murdering former Russian security officer Alexander Litvinenko) who accused Russia's fugitive, London based tycoon Boris Berezovsky of working for British intelligence. (Pic K.Pravda)

The state caim that he was really used by British intelligence...

“The Federal Security Service checked the statement of Russian citizen Zharko on the circumstances of his cooperation with British intelligence. The examination helped to get sufficient data showing that in the period from 2003 to 2007 officers of MI6 recruited him and then used as an agent during espionage actions to the detriment of external security of the Russian Federation,”

Zharko admits that his controllers planned to collect information about a number of officers of Russian security services with the aim of recruting them..

“At a meeting with British officers they asked me to collect information about personnel of Russian security services that might be useful for Britons for recruitment,”

In an interview published by the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily on Saturday he said that a man calling himself John Callaghan, (who he says was first secretary of the British Embassy in Moscow and is regarded a career intelligence officer) and one called Paul met him in London, Istanbul, Helsinki and Cyprus.

“The Britons later also confessed to me that they were intelligence
officers and John Callaghan told me that he was working under the cover of the
embassy in Moscow and took part in general operations, for instance, had once
photographed secret documents in a restaurant WC,”

....he also named a Ken Philips who he says also worked in Moscow and now he is an intelligence officer in the British Embassy in Istanbul. Apparently these FO johnnies gave him a fancy mobile phone they would use to call him - but which was for receive only purposes.

Amongst his claims Zharkov says the Brits could not eliminate the possibility that the FSB had recruited an agent in the British embassy and “asked me if I could using my connections in security services to track down the ‘mole.” They also asked him to find out if “specific connections of certain non-governmental organisations could come under control of Russian security services.”

Intriguingly Zharko claims that British intelligence were working on cojunction with Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Litvinenko, whose death he says was caused by his undertaking “some personal experiments.”

His implication is that Litvinenko had been distanced from BB , his salary cut, and the Brits were starting to cold shoulder him ... and he desperately needed ..."money at all costs".

He also has a personal theory that through the Chechens and Zakayev that Sasha could have ,

"come in contact with dealers engaged in the contraband of radioactive
materials and get a fatal dose either accidentally or not.”

The Brits it seems were well aware of Sasha and his relationship with the exiled oligarchs and in early 2000 told Zharko “Sasha is not quite in his right mind.”

It would be wise to recall that Litvinenko is claimed to have been poisoned with radioactive Polonium-210, - but (unremarkably in this wilderness of mirrors) no official autopsy report has so far been made publicly available. Tricky one for our tyro Foriegn Secretary to deal with .. probably best ignore it.

see Novosti

Pic above - the strikingly beautiful but slighlty radioactive widow Litvinenko.