Alexander Litvinenko death: UK announces public inquiry

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Great timing David Cameron.



[h=1]Litvinenko inquiry is launched: now there's a coincidence![/h]


[h=2]Until now, government didn't want to risk Russian relations: after MH17, we're happy to upset Putin[/h]



"The security services have long been telling anybody who would listen that he [Litvinenko] was murdered by the Russian state with their direct involvement," Robinson said on Radio 4's Today programme this morning. "He was poisoned in other words.

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Mr Litvinenko, a former KGB officer, died in 2006 in a London hospital after he was poisoned with radioactive polonium.

 

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Mr Litvinenko's widow, Marina, said she was "relieved and delighted", saying the "truth will win out in the end".


The former Russian spy, 43, died after he was poisoned with radioactive polonium while drinking tea with two Russian men, one a former KGB officer, at a London hotel.
His family believes he was working for MI6 at the time of his death and was killed on the orders of the Kremlin.

 

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A government spokesman said Mr Litvinenko's death was "an appalling crime and we want to see those responsible prosecuted through the courts".

 

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The Litvinenko case

• 1 Nov 2006 - Alexander Litvinenko has tea with former agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun in London
• 4 Nov 2006 - After three days of vomiting he is admitted to hospital, and dies 22 days later. His death is attributed to radiation poisoning
• May 2007 - The UK decides Mr Lugovoi should be charged with the murder of Mr Litvinenko. He denies any involvement but says Mr Litvinenko was a British spy
• 5 Jul 2007 - Russia officially refuses to extradite Mr Lugovoi, prompting a diplomatic row
• 20 Sept 2012 - Pre-inquest review hears that Russia's links to the death will be probed
• May-June 2013 - Inquest into Mr Litvinenko's death delayed as coroner decides a public inquiry would be preferable
• Jan 2014 - Marina Litvinenko in High Court fight to force a public inquiry
• 11 Feb 2014 - High Court says the Home Office had been wrong to rule out an inquiry before the outcome of an inquest

 

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[h=1]Alexander Litvinenko: Profile of murdered Russian spy[/h]

Alexander Litvinenko fell ill after a meeting with former KGB contacts in London in 2006

A public inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko has been announced by the Home Secretary Theresa May. But who was he and why did his death become such a cause celebre?
Before he was poisoned and died in November 2006, few outside Russia had ever heard of Alexander Litvinenko.
A 43-year-old former officer with the Federal Security Service (FSB), Mr Litvinenko had become a useful, if not entirely reliable, source for journalists interested in the machinations of Vladimir Putin's Russia.
But it has since emerged the Russian spy was being paid by both the British secret service MI6 and the Spanish secret service.
He was allegedly investigating Spanish links to the Russian mafia, and had planned to fly to Spain with the main suspect for his murder, Andrei Lugovoi.
At a central London hotel on 1 November 2006 he took tea with Mr Lugovoi and another Russian contact Dmitri Kovtun.
He fell ill soon afterwards and spent the night vomiting.
Three days later he was admitted to Barnet General Hospital in north London, where his condition gradually became a cause for concern.
On 11 November he was interviewed by the BBC Russian Service and said he was in "very bad shape" after a "serious poisoning".

The Litvinenko case

• 23 Nov 2006 - Litvinenko dies three weeks after having tea with former agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun in London
• 24 Nov 2006 - His death is attributed to polonium-210
• 22 May 2007 - Britain's director of public prosecutions decides Mr Lugovoi should be charged with the murder of Mr Litvinenko
• 31 May 2007 - Mr Lugovoi denies any involvement in his death but says Mr Litvinenko was a British spy
• 5 Jul 2007 - Russia officially refuses to extradite Mr Lugovoi, saying its constitution does not allow it
• May-June 2013 - Inquest into Mr Litvinenko's death delayed as coroner decides a public inquiry would be preferable, as it would be able to hear some evidence in secret
• July 2013 - Ministers rule out public inquiry
• Jan 2014 - Marina Litvinenko in High Court fight to force a public inquiry
• 11 Feb 2014 - High Court says the Home Office had been wrong to rule out an inquiry before the outcome of an inquest line
• July 2014 - Public inquiry announced by Home Office

During that same interview, Mr Litvinenko, a critic of the Putin regime, said he had been looking into the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
He said he would hand over documents he had received on 1 November to a Russian newspaper when he recovered.
But he never did. On 17 November he was transferred to University College Hospital in London after his condition worsened.
He died six days later, with his wife Marina, father Walter, and son Anatoli at his bedside.
Born in the city of Voronezh in 1962, Mr Litvinenko joined a military unit of the Soviet Union's interior ministry in 1980 and reportedly joined the KGB eight years later.
He rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel when the KGB became the FSB in the 1990s.
Mr Putin was his ultimate boss at the FSB but they reportedly fell out.
After leaving the service Mr Litvinenko wrote a book, Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he claimed FSB agents had been responsible for the bombing of apartment blocks in Moscow and two other cities in 1999.

Police investigating the poisoning sealed off several premises, including this Itsu restaurant, for a period afterwards
The bombings were blamed on Chechen separatists and his book claimed they were used as a pretext for the second Russian invasion of Chechnya.
Mr Litvinenko came to Britain in 2000 and obtained asylum.
After his death, suspicion fell on Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun, the two Russians he had met for tea at the Millennium Hotel.
A post-mortem examination suggested Mr Litvinenko had died after being poisoned with the radioactive substance polonium-210.
A frantic police investigation led to a number of premises being briefly sealed off while forensic scientists tested for traces of the radioactive material.
Locations which tested positive included the Millennium Hotel, the Abracadabra lap-dancing club and the Emirates football stadium, where Mr Lugovoi had watched Arsenal play CSKA Moscow.
It also emerged he had met Italian academic Mario Scaramella at the Itsu sushi restaurant in central London, where he is said to have received documents about the death of Mrs Politkovskaya, a long-term critic of the FSB.
Lugovoi accusedTraces were also found on two planes at Heathrow airport, at the British embassy in Moscow and at a flat in Hamburg, Germany, linked to Mr Kovtun.
Around 700 people had to be tested for radioactive poisoning but none were seriously ill.
After a two-month investigation, Scotland Yard detectives handed over a file to the then director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, who announced in May 2007 that he was recommending Mr Lugovoi be charged with murder.
Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun both denied any responsibility for the death and at a news conference in Moscow Mr Lugovoi repeatedly stressed his innocence and claimed Mr Litvinenko was a British spy who might have been killed by the British security services.
The office of the prosecutor general in Moscow was quick to declare that Mr Lugovoi could not and would not be extradited because the constitution prevented the extradition of Russian citizens.

Andrei Lugovoi has denied any involvement and has accused the British security services
In July 2007, British-Russian tensions turned into an ugly spat with four Russian and four British diplomats expelled from their respective embassies.
The UK broke off links with the Russian security services and, although relations have thawed, David Cameron refused to renew links between MI6 and the FSB when he visited Moscow in 2011.
After pre-inquest reviews in September and December 2012, the date for the inquest into Mr Litvinenko's death was set at 1 May 2013.
But it was delayed after the coroner in charge of the case, Sir Robert Owen, decided that the inquest would not be able to hear evidence linked to alleged Russian state involvement.
Sir Robert said that without such material any verdict would be "potentially misleading and unfair" and suggested a public inquiry would be preferable as it would allow some evidence to be heard in secret.
But in July 2013, the British government formally rejected the idea.
The Litvinenko family called for a judicial review of the refusal, saying it showed "utter contempt".
But the government has now set up an inquiry to examine whether the Russian state was behind his death.
The inquiry will hold most of its hearings in public, although potentially sensitive material could "if absolutely necessary" be heard in closed session, a Downing Street spokesman said.

 

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The polonium trail: Key locations

The trail of radioactive contamination following the murder of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006 has taken detectives all over London, as well as to locations in Hamburg and Moscow.Here are the key sites that have formed the major part of the investigation, where radioactive substances have been found. University College Hospital: Where Mr Litvinenko died on 23 November - cleared for public use 1 Cavendish Place: Remediation work completed - cleared for public use 25 and 58 Grosvenor Street: 25 - cleared for public use, 58 - cleared for public use Best Western Hotel: Rooms isolated for remediation work - cleared for public use Millennium Hotel: Where Mr Litvinenko met associates shortly before he became ill - cleared after work Pescatori restaurant: Cleared for public use Itsu sushi bar: Where Mr Litvinenko dined - remediation work completed - cleared 7 Down Street: Part of office isolated - cleared for public use Sheraton Park Lane Hotel: One room cleared after remediation work; other awaiting formal clearance Parkes Hotel: Remediation work carried out - cleared for public use Hey Jo/Abracadabra: Contamination found on cushions and seating at this lap-dancing bar - cleared Dar Marrakesh restaurant: Contaminated shisha pipe handle and cushion cover removed - cleared Barnet Hospital: Where Mr Litvinenko was first taken after being taken ill - cleared for public use 140 Osier Crescent: Litvinenko's home - sealed off for contamination survey and subsequently cleared Litvinenko's Mercedes car: High levels of contamination found and reduced to safe levels Emirates Stadium: Arsenal ground visited by ex-KGB man who stayed at Millennium Hotel - cleared Royal London Hospital: Scene of Mr Litvinenko's post-mortem examination - cleared for public use Other locations: Ashdown Park Hotel, E Sussex: Where an associate is thought to have stayed - cleared for public use Heathrow airport: Traces of radioactive material found on three aircraft; given all-clear in Dec 2006 Lambeth - Mercedes taxi: Bag of waste removed and taxi cleaned - declared safe Moscow: Traces on a Finnish plane and at British Embassy - since cleared Hamburg: Flat of the ex-wife of Litvinenko contact Dmitry Kovtun and his mother-in-law's home *Remediation work involves sealing or removing contaminated material, reducing activity to "safe" levels. Source: HPA/Westminster City Council/Haringey Council/CAA/BA

 

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Obituary: Alexander Litvinenko

Mr Litvinenko was renowned for his critique of Russia's security services Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian security officer who has died in a London hospital after apparently being poisoned, was a fierce critic of Russia's government.Born in the Russian city of Voronezh, Mr Litvinenko first became a security agent in the FSB's predecessor, the Soviet-era KGB, after transferring from the military. He rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He is reported to have fallen out with Russian President Vladimir Putin, then head of the FSB, in the late 1990s, after failing to crack down on corruption within the organisation. The nature of his job, as a specialist in fighting organised crime, meant he would certainly have made enemies. Murder investigation Intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear Harvey said of his friend: "He headed up one of the internal investigations branches that was looking into the corruption and coercion that was going on within the Russian intelligence service so he made a lot of enemies way back then." Mr Harvey points to links between renegade former KGB officers and the Russian mafia. Mr Litvinenko is thought to have been close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead last month in Moscow, and said recently he was investigating her murder. She was another opponent of the Kremlin, and particularly the war in Chechnya. Mr Harvey said Ms Politkovskaya was carrying out investigations into corruption and it was likely Mr Litvinenko would have been privy to those inquiries. I believe Russia will rise again and that I will manage to return again to the motherland and Moscow Alexander Litvinenko It was after being handed documents relating to the murder of Ms Politkovskaya that he was taken ill more than three weeks ago, he said. Mr Litvinenko wrote a book in which he alleged Federal Security Service (FSB) agents in Russia coordinated the 1999 apartment block bombings in the country that killed more than 300 people. The Russian government has always maintained the blasts were the work of Chechen separatists. Arrest In 1998, Mr Litvinenko first came to prominence by exposing an alleged plot to assassinate the then powerful tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who himself now lives in self-imposed exile in the UK. Mr Litvinenko was subsequently arrested on charges of abusing his office, and spent nine months in a remand centre before being acquitted. Later he wrote Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he said that it was FSB agents and not Chechen rebels who carried out the apartment block bombings. The attacks helped swing public opinion behind Russia's second war in the breakaway Chechen republic, which began with a huge Russian military offensive later that year. Petrol bombs Complaining of persecution, in 2000 Mr Litvinenko fled to the UK where he sought, and was granted, asylum. But after settling in an unnamed London suburb, the former spy - who had a wife and teenage son - continued to behave as if on the run, constantly changing his contact details. Well aware of the methods of those who work in the shadowy intelligence underworld, he met contacts at busy, public locations. The Times newspaper reported in May 2005 that someone had tried to push a pram loaded with petrol bombs through his front door. Despite all this, in an interview four years ago, Mr Litvinenko said: "I believe Russia will rise again and that I will manage to return again to the motherland and Moscow." Allegations Appearing alongside high-profile opponents of Mr Putin, Mr Litvinenko continued to make allegations about his former bosses. Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before the 9/11 attacks. He also denounced the war in Chechnya as a crime, called for Russian troops to be withdrawn, and said compensation should be paid to Chechens. One of his friends - and one of a number of Russian exiles now settled in Britain - is Akhmed Zakayev, a former Chechen commander living under asylum in London. The two men lived on the same street in London, it has been reported. In the past, Russia has asked Britain to stop exiles such as Mr Berezovsky and Mr Zakayev making what it calls "slanderous statements" about the Russian regime. Russia has repeatedly sought their extradition.