Litvinenko suspect to make television series focusing on fate of Kremlin ‘traitors’
THE key suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko is to mock Britain by filming a television series clearly based on the scandal.
Andrey Lugovoy has his own show in Russia called Traitors and the latest series will focus on Russian spies who have gone to work for the British intelligence agencies and their fates. Lugov- oy also claimed MI6 had tried to recruit him six months before the death of the former KGB agent.
A public inquiry found on Thursday that Lugovoy and fellow Russian Dmitry Kovtun poisoned Mr Litvinenko with radioactive Polonium-210 in London almost a decade ago.
Sir Robert Owen, the inquiry’s chairman, said the assassination was “probably” sanctioned by Vladimir Putin. The pair denied involvement but Lugovoy has refused to come to Britain to face trial.
It is known that Mr Litvinenko was working with MI6 after he fled to Britain in 2000.
Asked if the theme of his latest series was deliberate, Lugovoy said: “That’s what the series producers wanted me to focus on this time.”
In 2014 he said: “Treachery is a topical subject, and not just for Russia – for Britain and America too.”
The former KGB bodyguard, also dismissed Sir Robert’s conclusions as “nonsense” and said the retired High Court judge had “clearly gone mad”. He added: “The fact that such words as ‘possibly’ and ‘probably’ were used in the report, means there is no proof, nothing concrete against us.”
Lugovoy and Kovtun are accused of poisoning Mr Litvinenko during a meeting at the Millennium Hotel in London in 2006.
Speaking on a late night talk show on Russian television, Lugovoy hinted that the British state may have had more to do with the murder than Russia, claiming that MI6 had approached him in April and March 2006.
He claims that he, too, very nearly fell victim to the same poison. “I have reason to suspect that I received a dose of polonium radiation along with Mr Litvinenko. But I was staying in British hotels, I flew on British aircraft, I was meeting members of the British establishment, and who could have given it to me only God knows,” he said.