Russia killed Litvinenko, rules European court

The European Court of Human Rights backed the conclusion of a British inquiry that Russia was responsible for the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who died in London in 2006 after drinking tea laced with a radioactive material. A former agent for the KGB spy agency and its post-soviet successor agency FSB, Litvinenko defected from Russia in 2000 and fled to London. While in Britain, Litvinenko became involved in exposing corruption and links to organised crime in the Russian intelligence service. He fell violently ill on Nov 1, 2006, after drinking tea with two Russian men at a London hotel, and spent three weeks in the hospital before he died. His tea was found to have been laced with radioactive polonium-210.