The report’s author Sir Robert Owen singled out then-FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev alongside the Russian president. Britain summoned the Russian ambassador for a dressing-down Thursday and imposed an asset freeze on the two main Russian suspects: Andrei Lugovoi, now a Russian lawmaker, and Dmitry Kovtun, described now as a Russian businessman.
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British public inquiry says murder of former KGB agent in London “was probably approved” by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russian Federation.
Mr Litvinenko died aged 43 in London days later.
The tensions dated back to their only face-to-face meeting in 1998, when Mr Putin was head of the FSB and Mr Litvinenko was pushing for reforms of the intelligence service.
The British government called the news “extremely disturbing”, and the Foreign Office stated that Russian Federation “had demonstrated a flagrant disregard for United Kingdom law, global law and standards of conduct”. The Kremlin has always denied any involvement. The judge found that Lugovoi and Kovtun had left a trail of radioactive polonium particles as they traveled across London, with the strongest readings coming from a washbasin in Kovtun’s bedroom.
The poison that was found in his blood, polonium 210, is a highly radioactive component that was used in nuclear weapons.
The inquiry heard evidence that Mr Litvinenko may have been consigned to a slow death from radiation rather than shot in order to “send a message”.
“I’m very pleased that the words my husband spoke on his deathbed when he accused Putin of his murder have been proved true in an English court”, she told reporters.
“His murder was a bad crime and as we’ve said before, we believe the perpetrator of the crime should be brought to justice”, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at a press briefing.
“We will never accept anything arrived at in secret and based on the evidence not tested in an open court of law”, the embassy said, referring to the hearing of some evidence in secret because it came from British security services. I am also sure that they did this with the intention of poisoning Mr Litvinenko.
British Judge Robert Owen says Litvinenko was given tea laced with a fatal dose of polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006.
The ex-spy was regarded as having betrayed the FSB by accusing it of 1999 apartment block bombings that killed more than 200 and which Moscow, launching an offensive to restore control over the southern region of Chechnya, blamed on Chechens.
“It [signalled] that the prime minister would do nothing in the face of the damaging findings of Sir Robert Owen”.
The Government had initially argued that a public inquiry was not necessary and the matter should be dealt with by an inquest.
“We have to weigh carefully the need to take measures with the broader need to work with Russian Federation on certain issues”, she said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has dismissed the report as politically motivated.
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Vyacheslav Nikonov, a political analyst close to the Kremlin, called the case “a black box into which no one was allowed to look, except for the judge”, and claimed “decisions were made for purely political reasons”.
