(((My bogometer just violently exploded, but I don't think I'll lack for company here.)))
(((He's a radioactively poisoned Russian emigre quadruple-agent and a last-minute convert to Islam. Okay, uh: no.)))
FATHER SAYS LITVINENKO CONVERTED TO ISLAM. Valter Litvinenko, the father of the late Aleksandr Litvinenko, told RFE/RL's Russian
Service in London on December 4 that his son converted to Islam shortly before his death. Valter Litvinenko added that "Sasha had been thinking about becoming a Muslim for some time because he was fairly critical of what had been happening in the hierarchy of our
[Russian Orthodox] Church. Deciding to become a Muslim is, of course, a fairly unordinary decision and a crucial one."
The father said that his son told him two days before his death that he had "become a
Muslim." The father replied that "it's your decision. As long as you don't become a communist or a Satanist." London-based Chechen
Republic Ichkeria Foreign Minister Akhmed Zakayev told RFE/RL's
Russian Service on December 4 that Aleksandr Litvinenko told him of his desire to embrace Islam. Zakayev added that "I told him it was a purely personal question, that it isn't important to which god we pray as long as we aren't doing ignoble acts. And I sort of dropped it."
But Zakayev noted that Litvinenko repeatedly "returned to the subject. He pronounced the shahadah [the fundamental Muslim statement of faith], and any student of Islam will tell you that there are no particular rituals for converting to Islam. All you have to do is say one sura [a verse or chapter from the Koran] and, from that moment, if the person who pronounces this sura, this shahadah, has sincere intentions, from that moment he is considered a Muslim." Zakayev said that on November 22, at Litvinenko's request, Zakayev "brought an imam to him. The imam read over him a sura from the Koran, the one that is read over a dying Muslim." On December 4, the Russian daily
"Izvestia" returned to the theory that "Litvinenko was either involved in selling radioactive materials, or somebody was trying to build a portable nuclear device. It's hard to find any other explanation for the presence of that much polonium in proximity" to him.
The daily suggested that the polonium with which Litvinenko had come into contact would have been worth $40 million, which would have made it "the most expensive poisoning in history" had it indeed been a poisoning. On December 5, Britain's "Financial Times" suggested that "prolonged exposure to Russian conspiracy theories can be damaging to mental health." PM
