CLOAK AND CABINET

In October 2006, a murder shocked the streets of London. What followed was a radioactive trail all the way to the Kremlin. Alexander Litvinenko astonished the world with his bizarre tale of spies, KGB and assassination by one of the deadliest toxins in the world. The poison of choice by the two Russian killers who were sent to terminate Litvinenko, polonium 210.   Alexander Litvinenko in hospital after being poisoned Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was born on 4 December 1962. He was born in the city of Voronezh, Russia. His parents, Walter and Nina Litvinenko, divorced when he was a baby. His father was absent during his childhood, and Alexander mostly grew up with his grandparents in the city of Nalchik, in the North Caucasus region. Sometimes, he would live with his mother in Moscow and an aunt in a town called Morozovsk.  Litvinenko enrolled in the army a month before he was due to be called up for national service, at the age of 17 years old. From 1981, for 4 ye...

The last bastions of the Iron Curtain, North Korea is run under a regime that has no parallel in the world. No other country is as oppressed, and uses methods of torture, public executions and mass famine to subdue their population into submission. The North Korean people face extreme punishments for the smallest crimes, and live in constant fear and dread that they will be thrown to a gulag, or be tortured and killed if the say the wrong thing or do something illegal. And, in the DPRK, almost everything is illegal! UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL INVESTIGATION   In 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council launched an unprecedented investigation into human rights in North Korea. The conclusion, in 2014, led to a 372 page report detailing the atrocities that the Kim regime forces on his people. The report set out to investigate the systematic, wide spread human rights abuse in nine basic areas that were identified in North Korea. These were the main categories: Violations of t...

Abductions by North Korea were never a mystery to the world. Since the 1950s, scientists, politicians and skilled workers from South Korea were often kidnapped and forced to put their knowledge to the benefit of the regime. However in 2002, under the rule of Kim Jong-Il, North Korea admitted to also being responsible for snatching unsuspecting victims from Japan, Italy, and other countries. Their disappearances and treatment shocked the world, it was something like the plot from an action movie!  In this post, we will cover the disappearance of Doina Bumbea, a Romanian painter taken from Italy, and the man who she was forced to marry, James Dresnok, a US soldier and deserter to North Korea.  JAMES JOSEPH DRESNOK  From a young age, James' life was in turmoil. He was born in Richmond, Virgina in USA on November 24, 1941. His parents were Joseph and Margaret Dresnok. They were quite poor and often fought over money. When James was younger, his mother left their fathe...

It was filled with controversy the first time around, after being the first case to be cracked with DNA. Now, this case came again in the spotlight with the debate whether such a vile, sordid killer should be released in public after serving 33 years in jail on what was supposed to be a life sentence?  Read on to find out about the evil deeds of Colin Pitchfork and the sad fate of his victims, 15-years-olds Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth . Colin Pitchfork Mug Shot LYNDA MANN Our story starts on 21 November 1983, with 15-years-old Lynda Mann. She was babysitting at a neighbor's house, a few streets away from her own home. Her mother arrived to the residence after work, and saw her daughter had not returned. This was very strange for the responsible teenager, who would have got home on time or called to inform her parents that she would be away for the night.  While her mother was staring out the window, hoping for a glimpse of her daughter, young Lynda was already deceas...