Saturday, March 03, 2007

U.S. Putin critic shot in Maryland

This is enough to raise one's eyebrows, at least:
FBI agents say they are assisting police in suburban Washington who are investigating the shooting of a Russian expert — a man who spoke out on "Dateline NBC" last weekend and strongly suggested that remnants of the KGB were responsible for the bizarre poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.

The Russian expert, Paul Joyal, was shot Thursday night as he got out of his car in front of his house in Adelphi, Md. Investigators in Prince Georges County say a witness claims to have seen two men running away after the shooting. Joyal remains hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the midsection. Authorities have not said whether they've been able to talk to him.

The fact that he lived indicates to me that this was just a coincidence. Additionally, Putin has to know that a killing of a U.S. citizen would create a diplomatic shitstorm. Just the same, anytime a critic of Putin's dies mysteriously or, in this case is randomly shot, it pays to look a little deeper into it, because very few people think Putin's Russia is above this sort of thing anymore.

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