A formal British inquiry into the murder by poisoning of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko has found that the killing was “probably” approved personally by Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I’m calling immediately for expulsion from the United Kingdom of all Russian intelligence operatives … based at the London embassy”.
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Singling out then-FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev alongside Mr Putin, Sir Robert wrote: “Taking full account of all the evidence and analysis available to me I find that the FSB operation to kill Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin”.
Much focus will fall on the report’s conclusions regarding allegations that the Russian state was involved in the murder.
“I am sure that Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun placed the polonium-210 in the teapot at the Pine Bar on Nov 1, 2006”, judge Robert Owen, the inquiry’s chairman, said in the report.
“This can be seen as the product of the elegant sense of humour of the British, when a public and closed investigation rests on undisclosed information from unnamed intelligence services and the ample use of the words “possibly” and “probably”, he said. Litvinenko was a KGB officer who fled to the U.K.in 2000, after exposing corruption in Moscow’s security services.
Marina, Litvinenko’s widow, welcomed the report’s “damning finding” and pressed United Kingdom to impose sanctions on Russian Federation and travel bans on Putin.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry deemed the inquiry “politically motivated”. According to The Washington Post, the report specifically names two assassins, believed to be working for the Russian intelligence agency F.S.B., as the men who slipped deadly polonium-210 into Litvinenko’s tea in 2006.
He points out that there was “undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism” between Litvinenko and Putin.
She described it as a “blatant and unacceptable breach of worldwide law and civilized behavior”.
Owen has previously said there is British government evidence which establishes a “prima facie” case showing the Kremlin is responsible for Litvinenko’s death.
In light of Russia’s response, the United Kingdom has said it was already moving to implement sanctions against Moscow, such as assest freezes for Lugovoi and Kovtun, if the refusal to extradite them continues. A judicial report released indicates that Putin may have known a lot about the death of Alexander Litvinenko.
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The 43 year-old Alexander Litvinenko was a former spy who was regarded by Russia as having betrayed its security service, the FSB, by accusing it of bombing Russian apartment blocks in 1999 which the Kremlin blamed on dissident Chechens.
