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Comment by tikumo | Hacker News Reader

Why is this weird? It's logical the highest person has to be responsible? The CIA or MI6 would probably do the same for their spies. I think it's better than the alternative of an unknown high person within the ranks to make this call..

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Exactly, Russian secret service were either dumb to do it in such obvious way or just wanted to send a message to other spies. There are plenty of unexplained British and US spy deaths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)

'His decomposing naked remains were found in a red The North Face bag, padlocked from the outside, in the bath of the main bedroom's en-suite bathroom.'

...

'A subsequent Metropolitan Police re-investigation concluded that Williams's death was "probably an accident."'

... what?

Yeah - completely farcical ruling.

However, surely if he was killed to order, the people responsible would make it far less obvious, and if it was attempted to be covered up - surely it wouldn't be as poorly done as this?

Yes, but exactly the same logic could be applied to Litvinenko. Death by plutonium is so obvious that one might think it was meant to be that way.

I can see the use of killing someone with a painful, elongated death by polonium poisoning, it's obvious, and makes a statement. I don't feel the same can be said for making the body of someone appear in a locked bag though - people's reactions are closer to "WTF?" rather than shock.

If you want to send a message, you don't make it a plausible accident. And if you really want to send a message loud and clear, you let it be understood that this was no rogue element; the whole government backs this up: another branch of the executive, the judiciary (no review), and the legislative (no investigative committee).

If it weren't so awful, the Met's verdict after their investigation into Williams' death is almost comical - sort of like Occam's Razor taken to some sort of incredible extreme. I mean, of course he accidentally padlocked himself into a bag and died - happens every day, right?

indeed MI6 and CIA go way beyond targeting isolated threats and are no better when using pre-emptive strikes in countries they have not declared war on.

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/

US politics are a major annoyance with their blanket surveillance and pushing TTP and they affect me over here in Europe while I can't vote them out of power because I'm not a US citizen and also have no rights to complain ... so yes I don't care much what Putin is doing and I seriously don't mind as long as Russia provides a bit of a counter balance to the Bull in a China shop that is the US.

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