Chilling echoes of KGB agent whose tea was poisoned in Mayfair
THE suspected poisoning of Sergei Skripal bears a chilling similarity to the assassination of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006.
Mr Litvinenko was given green tea laced with radioactive polonium 210 at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair.
The ex-spy, who took British citizenship after seeking asylum in 2000, was an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and worked as an adviser for MI6.
He fell violently ill on the way home after drinking from a teapot sprayed with polonium during a meeting with associate Mario Scaramella and was taken to Barnet General Hospital, North London.
He died three weeks later. A 2016 report by former judge Robert Owen found that Mr Litvinenko was killed by two former KGB agents, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, while Vladimir Putin and intelligence chief Nikolai Patrushev ‘probably’ personally authorised the attack.
Lugovoi and Kovtun survived because the radioactive material has to be ingested to kill. Mr Litvinenko’s teapot gave off readings of 100,000 becquerels per sq cm – ten times the lethal concentration.
Lugovoi and Kovtun had tried to poison Litvinenko a month earlier Mr Owen found the use of polonium was ‘a strong indicator of state involvement’ as it had to be made at a nuclear reactor. Russia has refused to extradite the two suspects, instead showering them with honours. Lugovoi is now an MP.