The contrasting deaths of Alexander Litvinenko in London and Alberto Nisman in Buenos Aires once more bear out the famous slogan of the KGB, that anyone can commit a murder, but it takes an artist to commit a suicide. Both men gave warning that powerful people wanted them out of the way. Litvinenko, it appears, had information exposing how President Vladimir Putin had become one of the richest men in the world. In 1994, a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was blown up, an act of terror that left 85 dead. The terror master, it also appears, was Hassan Rouhani, currently president of Iran and successfully posing as a moderate.

Nisman, public prosecutor of the case, had been endlessly obstructed by the Argentine government from the presidency downwards. On condition that charges of terrorism were dropped, Nisman could show, Iran was offering to exchange its oil for Argentinian wheat, a deal worth $4 billion. A few hours before he was due to present to a parliamentary commission the evidence he had carefully gathered, Nisman was found dead on his bathroom floor. Cristina Kirchner, president of Argentina, at first stated that he had shot himself, then changed her mind to say that this was murder after all. There was no trace of powder on his hand. Artistry indeed.