QUESTIONS ON PUTIN’S ROLE
British inquiry into murder of former spy claims Russian leader was involved
Inquiry finds killing of former Russian spy was ‘probably approved’ by Putin,
LONDON // Russian president Vladimir Putin “probably approved” the killing of former spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, a British inquiry into his death by radiation poisoning found yesterday.
Litvinenko, a prominent Kremlin critic, died in 2006 aged 43, three weeks after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium at an upmarket London hotel. Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, two Russians identified as prime suspects by British police, probably carried out the poisoning under the instruction of Russian security services, the inquiry claimed.
In a statement before he died, Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who became a freelance investigator and also worked for British intelligence, accused Mr Putin of ordering his killing.
Prime minister David Cameron’s office called the findings “extremely disturbing” but the government did not announce sanctions, which some had called for.
Instead, it summoned Russia’s ambassador to London for talks and to express displeasure at Moscow’s failure to cooperate with the murder investigation.
It also imposed asset freezes on the two alleged perpetrators named by the inquiry.
There were cries of “Yes” at the High Court in London as the main findings were read out.
Litvinenko’s wife Marina, accompanied by her 21-year-old son Anatoly, embraced supporters.
She has spent years pushing for a public inquiry to be held and had called for sanctions against Russia and a travel ban on Mr Putin.
“I’m very pleased that the words my husband spoke on his deathbed when he accused Mr Putin of his murder have been proved true in an English court,” she said outside the court.
“I can’t say it [the hearing] is what I hoped for but I really appreciate it.”
Russia dismissed the findings, calling the inquiry “politically motivated”. “We had no reason to expect that the final findings of the politically motivated and extremely non- transparent process would suddenly become objective and unbiased,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. Judge Robert Owen, the inquiry’s chairman, said he was sure that Messrs Lugovoi and Kovtun placed polonium- 210 in the teapot at the Millennium Hotel’s Pine Bar, where they met Litvinenko on November 1, 2006.
Mr Lugovoi, now a far- right, pro-Putin politician in Russia, described the outcome as absurd.
The report also said that “the FSB operation to kill Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr [Nikolai] Patrushev and also by president Putin”.
Mr Patrushev is a former director of the FSB, the successor organisation to the Soviet-era KGB spy agency, and has been a key security official since 2008.
Polonium-210 is a rare radioactive isotope available only in closed nuclear facilities.
The report, which contained classified evidence redacted from the version made public, said this suggested that Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun “were acting for a state body rather than, say, a criminal organisation”. There was “no evidence” to suggest that either Mr Lugovoi or Mr Kovtun had any personal reason to kill Litvinenko and were likely to be acting under FSB direction, Mr Owen said, as Litvinenko was seen as “having betrayed the FSB” and had regularly targeted Mr Putin with “highly personal public criticism”, including an accusation of paedophilia.
Shortly after the report was published, London’s Metropolitan Police issued a statement stressing that it still wanted the pair to be extradited.
“Our objective will always be to put them before a criminal court,” it said. Britain’s government announced the inquiry in July 2014, days after the downing of a Malaysian passenger jet over eastern Ukraine – a tragedy blamed on Russia’s involvement in the conflict in the region – in what was seen as a way of punishing Russia. It started work in January last year.
In a statement on the inquiry to the house of commons, home secretary Theresa May stressed the importance of Russia’s role in talks attempting to resolve the conflict in Syria.
Urging Mr Putin and Russia to “make a positive contribution to global security,” she said: “They can, for example, play an important role in defeating ISIL.”