British judge agrees: Putin responsible for poisoning of ex-KGB o∞cer in 2006
london» Gaunt and frail, his organs succumbing to the cruelly destructive power of radioactive poisoning, Alexander Litvinenko lay in a London hospital bed in November 2006 and identified the man responsible for his impending demise: Vladimir Putin.
Nearly a decade later, an exhaustive inquiry by a British judge concluded on Thursday that the dying former KGB operative was probably right. For the first time, the Russian president was implicated officially in a murder that seemed plucked from the pages of a Cold War spy novel but actually played out in the bar of a posh hotel in 21st-century London.
The victim: an outspoken Kremlin critic who had defected to Britain, joined the payroll of British intelligence and accused Putin of vices including corruption and pedophilia. The killers: a pair of assassins who, the report found, were almost certainly acting on orders from the Russian spy service, the FSB, and who left a trail of radioactive evidence strewn across London. The weapons of choice: one teapot and one massive dose of a rare nuclear isotope, polonium.
The conclusions instantly set off a furious diplomatic row, with British and Russian offi-
cials accusing each other of treachery and deceit. British Prime Minister David Cameron called the findings of “state-sponsored” murder in his capital city “absolutely appalling.” A Kremlin spokesman, without apparent irony, said the report would “further poison the atmosphere.”
But there was a limit to how much damage the report could do to relations that are badly frayed. The inquiry’s findings come at a highly sensitive time, as the West seeks Russian cooperation in ending the Syrian war. The British government’s response to the report reflected that delicate dynamic, with officials lashing out verbally but backing away from the sort of retaliation that could truly bite in Moscow. Cameron acknowledged as much, saying that Britain needed to engage with Russia on Syria but would do so “with clear eyes and a very cold heart.”
Litvinenko’s wife called Thursday for Britain to expel Russian intelligence officials and enact new sanctions in response to the killing of her husband. Speaking before the government’s response became public, Marina Litvinenko said her husband’s dying belief had been vindicated.
“I am, of course, very pleased that the words my husband spoke on his deathbed — when he accused Mr. Putin of his murder — have been proved true,” she told reporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London.
But it is highly unlikely that his killers will face justice anytime soon for an assassination that a British parliamentary committee has described as “a minia- ture nuclear attack on the streets of London.”
British officials on Thursday reiterated requests for Russia to extradite the two alleged killers, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun. Yet even with the new findings, Russia does not extradite its citizens, and Lugovoi has been rewarded in the years since the killing with a seat in parliament.
Lugovoi, a former KGB officer, on Thursday called the allegations against him absurd.
“These are lies, total lies, nonsense,” he told the Ekho Moskvy radio station.
Kovtun, now a businessman, described the charges as based on “falsified and fabricated evidence.”
Britain announced that it had seized the assets of the two men, although that was believed to be a symbolic gesture. Ben Emmerson, the attorney for Litvinenko’s wife, acknowledged that the two would not stand trial until “the final fall of Vladimir Putin.”
The inquiry into Litvinenko’s death was led by High Court Judge Robert Owen and was set up by the British government. The final report, the product of more than three years of work and set out over 328 pages, suggests that Putin had a personal motive for wanting Litvinenko dead because the defector had become such a fierce critic.
Although the inquiry stops short of conclusively blaming Putin — noting the opaque nature of Kremlin politics — it finds that there is “strong circumstantial evidence that the Russian State was responsible for Mr. Litvinenko’s death.” And citing the high-stakes nature of an operation to assassinate a former KGB officer on British soil, it finds that the operation would probably not have gone ahead without Putin’s direct approval.
Contamination in the Pine Bar
A model of the Millennium Hotel’s Pine Bar shows where Alexander Litvinenko sat and had tea. Purple areas indicate high levels of radiation contamination.