Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was “deliberately poisoned” and his murder was “probably approved” by Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the report of a British public inquiry released Thursday.
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And the two agents identified in the report as the killers said it was “crazy” and discredited the British justice system.
In the years that followed Mr Litvinenko’s death, the case attracted an avalanche of claims and theories and threatened to plunge Anglo-Russian relations into crisis.
Litvinenko was poisoned at a London hotel in 2006 by a cup of tea laced with polonium-210 – an extremely expensive radioactive isotope only available in closed nuclear facilities – in a sequence of events which could have come from a Cold War thriller.
There he became an outspoken critic of the Kremlin under Putin and is said to have provided information to British intelligence services.
“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.
Litvinenko, who had obtained British citizenship shortly before his death, died gradually over three weeks, telling authorities that he believed it to be a direct hit from Putin.
The Home Secretary presented the United Kingdom government’s response to the findings in a statement to the House of Commons, describing it as a “blatant and unacceptable” breach of global law.
Sir Robert said Mr Litvinenko’s work for British intelligence agencies, his criticism of the FSB and Mr Putin, and his association with other Russian dissidents were possible motives for his killing.
In an interview with the Interfax news agency, Lugovoi called the charges against him “absurd”.
The two Russians he had green tea with; Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, have denied killing him. Both deny involvement, and Moscow refuses to extradite them. I conclude therefore that he was also acting under FSB direction, possibly indirectly through Mr Lugovoy but probably to his knowledge.
The Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman said: “I think the murder of someone here in Britain and the pain and torment that that has caused for his wife and family and an independent inquiry like this with such serious conclusions, is far from that”. “More likely it can be attributed to fine British humor – the fact that an open public inquiry is based on the classified data of special services, unnamed special services”.
He said the ex-spy was regarded as having betrayed the FSB by accusing it of carrying out 1999 apartment block bombings that killed more than 200 people in Russian Federation and which the Kremlin, launching an offensive to restore control over the southern region of Chechnya, blamed on Chechens.
Mr Litvinenko fled to great britain claiming persecution.
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She urged Cameron to expel Russian intelligence agents operating in Britain and impose economic sanctions and travel bans on Putin and other officials linked to what her lawyer, Ben Emmerson, called “a mini-act of nuclear terrorism on the streets of London”.
