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| Polonium, ‘heartbreak grass’ or good old-fashioned cyanide: what’s your poison? | Polonium, ‘heartbreak grass’ or good old-fashioned cyanide: what’s your poison? |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| As an undetectable means of bumping someone off, poison has fallen steeply out of favour in recent times, forensic technology having advanced to such a degree that the presence of even the smallest quantities of any toxic agent in a corpse will now almost inevitably be detected. | As an undetectable means of bumping someone off, poison has fallen steeply out of favour in recent times, forensic technology having advanced to such a degree that the presence of even the smallest quantities of any toxic agent in a corpse will now almost inevitably be detected. |
| Water-soluble, tasteless and formerly widely available in the form of rat poison and weed killer, white arsenic was once so popular that it was known as “inheritance powder”. Strychnine, made from the seeds of the south-east Asian Nux vomica tree, was equally fashionable, as – in the Middle Ages – was atropine, aka belladonna or deadly nightshade: the juice of a few berries could be lethal. | Water-soluble, tasteless and formerly widely available in the form of rat poison and weed killer, white arsenic was once so popular that it was known as “inheritance powder”. Strychnine, made from the seeds of the south-east Asian Nux vomica tree, was equally fashionable, as – in the Middle Ages – was atropine, aka belladonna or deadly nightshade: the juice of a few berries could be lethal. |
| The fastest-acting of all the classic poisons, cyanide, had its day, of course, and the last century also saw the emergence of a host of other less familiar but even more deadly toxins, each more fearsome than the next: sarin, anthrax, botulinum. All, though, are eminently identifiable. | The fastest-acting of all the classic poisons, cyanide, had its day, of course, and the last century also saw the emergence of a host of other less familiar but even more deadly toxins, each more fearsome than the next: sarin, anthrax, botulinum. All, though, are eminently identifiable. |
| But what if you want to kill someone without foul play being immediately suspected? Someone, for example, like Russian businessman and whistleblower Alexander Perepilichny, who collapsed and died in what police believed was an unsuspicious death outside his home in Surrey in 2012 after receiving assassination threats. | But what if you want to kill someone without foul play being immediately suspected? Someone, for example, like Russian businessman and whistleblower Alexander Perepilichny, who collapsed and died in what police believed was an unsuspicious death outside his home in Surrey in 2012 after receiving assassination threats. |
| Related: Russian whistleblower had traces of rare poison in stomach, plant expert says | Related: Russian whistleblower had traces of rare poison in stomach, plant expert says |
| News this week that a plant toxicology expert had found in Perepilichny’s stomach traces of an extremely poisonous species of gelsemium – a rare plant whose most toxic species is also known as “heartbreak grass” – may focus attention once more on the highly unusual work carried out by the poison laboratory of the Russian secret services, also known as the Kamera. | News this week that a plant toxicology expert had found in Perepilichny’s stomach traces of an extremely poisonous species of gelsemium – a rare plant whose most toxic species is also known as “heartbreak grass” – may focus attention once more on the highly unusual work carried out by the poison laboratory of the Russian secret services, also known as the Kamera. |
| In the words of a former Soviet military intelligence officer, Boris Volodarsky, the current job of the Kamera – originally set up by Stalin in 1921 – is to devise “poisonous biological and chemical agents” that will kill or incapacitate their victims in such a way as to make the “death or illness appear natural, or at least to produce symptoms that will baffle doctors and forensic investigators”. | In the words of a former Soviet military intelligence officer, Boris Volodarsky, the current job of the Kamera – originally set up by Stalin in 1921 – is to devise “poisonous biological and chemical agents” that will kill or incapacitate their victims in such a way as to make the “death or illness appear natural, or at least to produce symptoms that will baffle doctors and forensic investigators”. |
| Its handiwork, for Russia’s FSB domestic security agency and its foreign intelligence body, the SVR, has been alleged in the death of fugitive FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko (polonium-210); the disfigurement of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko (specially treated dioxin); the poisoning of journalist Anna Politkovskaya (never identified); and, in 1978, the assassination of dissident Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov (ricin, contained in a tiny pellet injected from an umbrella tip). | |
| There are, of course, many other alleged victims of the Kamera, although no one can be sure how many. After all, as Volodarsky notes, how can you count poison victims when no poison has ever been detected? | There are, of course, many other alleged victims of the Kamera, although no one can be sure how many. After all, as Volodarsky notes, how can you count poison victims when no poison has ever been detected? |
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