…WHAT WAS THE GAS?

On October 31, I received a telephone call from one of his readers, Professor A. Heyndrickx, director of International Reference Laboratories in Ghent, Belgium, a specialist on toxicology and a UN expert commissioned to examine the remains of victims of Yugoslav war crimes in Kosovo. Professor Heyndrickx believes that reports appearing in the American press stipulating fentanyl as the ingredient in the gas used in Moscow are unwittingly serving as a “masquerade.” Despite what the papers say, he asserted, fentanyl is not an opiate. There had to be a “toxic compound” in the gas used in Moscow, with the fentanyl being used to cover it up. Heyndrickx is convinced that a toxic compound of the BZ family was in fact used, as it was in Kosovo. “The active compound,” he remarked, “had disappeared from surviving former hostages recently examined by a German doctor.” What is urgently needed now, he said, is a corpse, because the effects of the BZ remain detectable much longer in a corpse than in a survivor. He therefore strongly recommends that the remains of deceased American and European hostages be examined in a proper autopsy. “That would be the way to prove that BZ was used.” Heyndrickx said that he had heard reports that the Russian government intended to cremate all the bodies as soon as possible. He has written to The Hague and to Kofi Annan with his conclusions. Interestingly, on October 28, in an article entitled “The Mystery of the Spetsnaz,” a pro-Putin website, Strana.ru, likewise singled out BZ as a possible ingredient.