PrintDecember 4, 2006
Poisoned Litvinenko asked for Muslim burial? (updated)
The mind boggles. Polonium-poisoned ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko's father says that he asked for a Muslim burial. At least that is what MosNews.com is reporting, based on a Russian language daily newspaper report.
Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian intelligence agent poisoned in London, requested before his death that he be buried according to Muslim tradition, his father said in an interview for the Kommersant daily newspaper published Monday. The former agent and critic of the Kremlin expressed the wish as he lay dying in his father's arms, Valter Litvinenko said.
"He said I want to be buried according to Islamic tradition. I said okay son. It will be as you wish. We already have one Muslim in our family. The important thing is to believe in the Almighty. God is one," he said in the interview. Valter Litvinenko said he was sure that President Vladimir Putin was involved in the death a view apparently voiced by the former agent himself in a letter before his November 23 death and rejected claims that former Russian agents may have been responsible, the AFP news agency reports.
There are more angles to explore on this story than in a fun house hall of mirrors. Is this a deception to aid Putin, tying Litvinenko to Chechens? Could Litvinenko have actually converted to Islam? If so, what was he doing in London?
I am reminded of the old Spy vs. Spy comic of Mad Magazine.
Hat tip: Ummah News Links
Update: Clarice Feldman adds:
About Litvinenko's conversion--Don't forget that it was he who exposed the fact that Putin solidified his political position by blaming the Chechens for the Moscow bombings almost certainly caused by Putin's own FSB to strip the Chechens of their new found independence. After Litvinenko fled Russia , he was close to the non-terriorst, pro independence Chechens. Also sympathetic to them was the journo Anna Politkovskaya who was poisoned on a plane and later shot to death and whose assassination Litvinenko was working to expose.
