Location, the Millennium Hotel, Mayfair, London. Irish piano player Derek Conlon was about to become an inadvertent innocent victim of Russian leader Putin and his agents sent in, to kill one of his long existing foes. November the first, 2006, inside the hotel was poisoned Alexander Litvinenko. This was a man who previously was himself, a Russian agent. Alexander Litvinenko had just been served a pot of green tea that was laced with Polonium-210. He was reportedly setup by two Russian agents with permission direct from Putin.
- Polonium-210 (Po-210) is an unstable radioactive isotope that trace amount occurs in the earth’s crust. It’s more primarily created via the radioactive decay of uranium-238. It’s known for emitting alpha radiation and normally has a relatively short half-life of about 138 days. Po-210 as in the vase of Alexander Litvinenko and Derek Conlon, was produced care of a nuclear reactor – and as such, extreme high permission would have been needed to allow the use of Po-210 by the then top highest state official. In the case of Alexander Litvinenko, it was isotope extracted, used as a nuclear based weapon and deposited, radiation and all, into Litvinenko’s drinking liquid.
- Polonium-210 is still a very deadly lethal weapon to use within any population or location. To put things into perspective, a tiny amount of Polonium-210 – no bigger than a gain of sand – has the true capability to kill 10% of the entire population of London. This is not speculation. It is researched and confirmable, terrifying scientific fact. Micrograms are enough to kill someone – anyone. A whole gram of extremely expensive Polonium-210 has the possibility to kill one million people when dosed through the right method. The soviet secret service had been working in an underground laboratory since 1921 on a tasteless, odorless way of killing someone for clandestine missions in the West. Polonium-210 was to be one of their then latest methods. It was easily transferable by touch – and this is important to remember – as a bar drinking area would increasingly become contaminated. On November the first, 2006, both Alexander Litvinenko and Derek Conlon became victims of the nuclear based attack. Journalists would later declare it “an act of war”.
Derek Conlon woke up that morning around 10am. He then had his bacon and eggs to start off the day, before later venturing out, heading to work in The Millennium Hotel where he was hired to play the piano to seated customers and inside passers-by. The contamination carried on for hours.
The two Russian agents had on a previous “Active Measures” date, tried to kill Alexander Litvinenko, but by earlier miracle he hadn’t touched a previous laced alcohol drink he was presented with. He was a turned teetotaler. So, when they met up again and the two men hadn’t indicated they were an apparent threat previously, Litvinenko thought it was still safe and that he was only meeting up with people that worked in a department he used to work in, himself, in a previous early life. In truth, the two Russian agents on second attempt, slight of hand put the military grade nuclear material into a teacup, one held by the victims hands. The cup contents itself, then went into Litvinenko’s body. The Polonium-210, with cup radiation and all, was then free to also further spread, and it did!
- It should be noted that after this incident, the whole seating area would be device detected as nuclear radiation contaminated, like it had been part of a nuclear accident.
Derek Conlon, our Irish man, arrived around 5.30pm, shortly after the covert attack on Litvinenko. After hanging up his coat, he went to the bar for a quick coffee before beginning his work. The now radiation dosed cup had been picked up by others, rinsed out (the dishwasher had been apparently broken) before then being used again, to now coffee drinking Derek Conlon. He was drinking from a cup that still contained a radiation substance from a nuclear facility. Derek then started work by beginning to play piano tunes.
Litvinenko meanwhile, had returned home. He was starting to feel ill from the alpha particles he had yet to discover, was in his body and on his very skin, including hands. The time by this stage was around 1am and back at the Millennium hotel, Derek was finishing up his work music set. It was eight hours after drinking from the same cup as Litvinenko. Derek decided to take a bus home. the radiation particles were starting to take an effect too on him. Within weeks his body was also affected, including his eyesight.
Two weeks after the initial radiation dosing, Derek was watching the news when he started to hear about Litvinenko. Just a few days earlier, he tried to go to work again but was stopped by a now boarded up area of the hotel. Especially the bar area. Derek, like the rest of the world then got to graphic see the effect of the Po-210 on Litvinenko in the space of weeks. He had gone from a very healthy man, to a very sick, then fatal man, to looked very old upon death.
From working at the hotel, Derek continued to keep an eye on the on then going UK investigation. At one point he was contacted and asked to to to a hospital for “testing procedures” along with others. Going through it all, he then leaves. Less than two hours later, he’s re-contacted, told to come get his results – not from the same hospital, but from the hotel itself. Turning up, he’s taken upstairs to a room, only to be informed that his own radiation levels were pretty high. As the substance itself was spread by touch, secreting though skin over weeks or months and the hotel area had been body and hand contaminated, within four weeks the contamination further spread to at least 12 other physical locations in London.
Six weeks after the attack, UK police call on Derek to inform him about how exactly he had come in contact with Polonium-210 (Po-210). At first, Derek was treated as a suspect – but then so were a lot of people till they too were solidly ruled out. Detectives embarked upon surveillance using the latest high-tech, so he was watched, bugged and listened into, for a while. For over two months, Derek had to still pass on urine sample’s to the UK authorities as a health and safety measure.
It was only after two months that the Po-210 really started to affect his body. The first indication was his eye-sight began to fail. Things began to darken. A stressed Derek went to his doctor, who then had no access to previous urine and blood test results due to imposed secrecy by government departments. Despite this lack of ability, his doctor still guessed that his blood pressure at the time, was part impacted by the Po-210. Derek was put on blood pressure medication. Within days it had a positive affect. Derek however, was still worried that he still has a shorter time to live. He suspected that he was still under secret agency observation by the UK government, in not also by the Russian government to boot! He decided to leave the UK. He took a piano job in Barbados. He though to himself that if he was going to die, what better place to go! However, his health didn’t get any worse, and he then went on to further getting a job on the Queen Mary Two cruise ship. The worry was still existing however, that his time might still be limited. After all, the eye-sight issue only arose after a matter of time, not straight away after the attack.
Getting back in touch with some of his previous fellow Millennium Hotel staff friends, he heard about their odd ill-effects. Some had lost hair, there were heart-attacks from people not likely to be susceptible under normal circumstances. He discovered that his microphone and additional drum kit that he’s used at the hotel, were taken away by authorities, destroyed and then buried in a protective casing, along with his piano stool and P.A. system too. The fact that, after his introduction to Po-210, his very breath has managed to then radiate his microphone, was a scary shock to Derek. So, he thought to himself, what further toll had the Po-210 still taken on his body for later possible emergence!
Months of still living, turned into years. There were minor health issues but despite being one of the most radiated at the hotel, Derek was still able to carry on. By 2016, 10 years later, Derek found himself working on another tropical island, Anguilla. It was another hotel job playing piano. It’s a trait of Po-210 that long after its initial attacked you, it can still have a long reach in after-effect. On Anguilla one Sunday evening, Derek after eating started to rapidly stomach bloat, and bloat, and bloat even more… as Derek himself said “It was like someone was blowing me up!”
Somehow he struggled to the bathroom, collapsed there, hurt his head in falling and was out of it for a while. A doctor came in, took his blood pressure quickly and upon seeing the shocking test result, told staff others to get the piano player to hospital as quick as possible. Derek was out of consciousness for three days. Only later on the third day, he came around – to find a priest standing over him with rosery beads. It turned out that an ulcer had erupted and he needed blood transfusions. The Po-210 had long-term attacked his vital organs. Eventually he was later able to leave the hospital return to his hotel work place. Once there, he changed pants. The ones he put on, fell off him. he had lost three stone in very odd, rapid quick time. The Po-210 itself had nuclear radiation faded away – but the effects of it, had left his body damaged for later ill-health, to fall like connected dominos, after the first in a line had been pushed over.
Derek returned to the UK in order to seek better medial treatment. Treatment most certainly not available on the island of Anguilla. Derek was to have rigorous medical checks at least every six months. As of late 2020 he was reported still in relatively good health. For a long time he kept a low profile regarding the Litvinenko attack. He just got on with his life, no matter how long it would last! Eventually in his own time, he looked further into the whole attack matter, so see how the main victim’s wife and others had learned to move on, adjust or even ask question of their own.
Derek never further heard from the UK authorities regarding the hotel incident attack. He never had it confirmed that he’d been under observation and listens in on, by the UK secret state agencies. Derek now lives fulltime in the Uk. To respect his right of continuing a more normal life, I won’t mention his current location – or indeed, publish his facial picture. As things turned out, where Derek decided to finally settle down, the place oddly, still had some coincidences with the main, now deceased, Litvinenko victim. Coincidences that I won’t also mention, to also protect Derek’s location. Derek continues to live in hope that there are no more shocks to come in his life.
I certainly hope he lives in peace and remaining good health. Being the first modern Irish man to be inadvertently become a victim of a nuclear based weapon attack, is no award that any good and sane person would ever want to gain – but history now records such things as they are.
Jeff Rudd
Writer.
Follow-up.
A judge at a British public inquiry into the Litvinenko case, made happen due to pressure from Litvinenko ‘s wife, concluded in 2016 that the murder was an operation of Russia’s FSB spy agency named who it thought responsible and stated that more than likely Putin had to have signed off on such an attack. The judge added that it was probably approved by its director at the time, Nikolai Patrushev, and by Putin himself. Litvinenko was a British citizen at the time of his death. The Kremlin has always denied any role in his death – but deadly, unstable nuclear material just didn’t turn up in Litvinenko’s very teacup on that day, with his meeting of two then still existing Russian agents, by sheer coincidence! Why was Litvinenko targeted? Litvinenko had apparently discovered sensitive information and evidence that would have compromised the Russian leader, and was about to go public with it. Litvinenko was buried in a coffin lined with lead, just as a further precaution.
Putin would later reward one of the alleged agent attackers by making him the Russian equivalent of being an TD or as in the UK, an MP. This then gave the alleged attacker a form of legal protection. The other alleged attacker is now deceased. His passing is still under question, as to how truthfully it came about.
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Levels Of Selective Silence.
The nuclear material attack at the time, was passed off to most media willing to cover the attack on Litvinenko, as just a poisoning care of Russia and those that would have had to sign off on allowing it to occur. The nuclear material used, was traced back to a specific Russia location, to which special access alone, would have been very much needed in order to get to. what was played down big time, was both the absolute lethality of Po-210, and also its nuclear aspect. It was barely mentioned at all that nuclear attacks, if they were ever to happen, just didn’t have to come in the form of exploding bombs. Indeed, Po-210 is used in the ignition process of a nuclear bomb. Much of all this not mentioned or when authorities were angle questioned on such related aspects, the matters were passed over as if there was ‘nothing to worry about’.
It’s important that we ask “Why?”
Such a weapon of killing in fact, is still in 2025, a sure way to kill individuals or mass kill many numbers within any local population. The task would certainly not be easy – but at the same time, certainly not again impossible – as other Russia victims years later, would find out by the 2018 use of nerve agent Novichok (another alleged Russia/Putin sanctioned attack on UK soil). Po-210 and others that have been more than likely, equally and secretly, modern created by one government or more, are just one more overall element in a quiet arsenal of sophisticated states waring ability. To think that Russia alone, has devised such methods of attack, would be to sink in to realm of absolute naivety. It would be short-sighted to say the least. Just acknowledging such methods exist, would uneasy many for a long time in any country population.
Having a mass population really know that they are vulnerable 24/7 or 365 days of the year, at any time, to such an attack – and that a government might be powerless or too late to stop such attacks, is something that consecutive governments of many states, would rather have it’s population not more aware about or indeed, dwell over. Government inability to stop such attacks and its citizens realising this, would greatly undermine their PR portrayed ability to get on with keeping its population safe. Mass loss of confidence is something no political parties of any country, wants their potential voters to dwell on.
For other political reasons, the attack and another later one on UK soil, have been quietly dropped by UK media, who have moved on to their always next story. The UK government officially would like to hold to account those accused as responsible – but they and we all know, that’s not likely to ever really happen. Alexander Litvinenko, Derek and others affected, will never see true justice carried out.
Putin and Kremlin official still denies having anything to do with any attacks or further political related deaths that have occurred in the UK, in other European states, and some back in Russia – as to many people seem to continue falling off building tops, balcony’s or a number of other suspicious ways, not usually considered normal or at such a rate.