Court blames Moscow for Litvinenko hotel murder
EUROPE’S leading human rights court ruled yesterday that Russia was responsible for the 2006 killing in London of Alexander Litvinenko, the dissident former agent, in a verdict swiftly rejected by Moscow.
Litvinenko died after drinking tea laced with the radioactive isotope polonium-210 at a London hotel, in a case that has weighed on relations between Britain and Russia ever since.
Before dying, Litvinenko issued a message blaming Vladimir Putin for the poisoning, and opponents view the killing as one of the first in a line of Kremlin-backed assassination plots against dissidents.
“Russia was responsible for the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in the UK,” the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, said.
Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin’s spokesman rejected the claim. “There are still no results of this investigation, so making statements like these is unfounded. We are not prepared to accept this decision,” he said.
Responding to a complaint brought by Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, the court said that it had established “beyond reasonable doubt” that the assassination had been carried out by Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun.
The Russians had travelled to the British capital with the aim of killing him, the court found. “The planned and complex operation involving the procurement of a rare deadly poison, the travel arrangements for the pair, and repeated and sustained attempts to administer the poison indicated that Mr Litvinenko had been the target,” it said.
Mr Lugovoi, now a Russian MP, and businessman Mr Kovtun were identified by British police as prime suspects after they both met Litvinenko at a central London hotel.
Attempts to extradite them have failed and they have both rejected the charges, with Mr Lugovoi also claiming parliamentary immunity.
Mr Lugovoi told the Interfax news agency that the ruling was “unjust, illegal and politically motivated”.
The court said there was a “strong prima facie” case that the pair “had been acting on the direction or control of the Russian authorities”.