ALEXANDER Litvinenko’s murder was ordered by Moscow just weeks after he said
Vladimir Putin was a paedophile, a public inquiry found yesterday.
It said the enraged Russian leader “probably” sanctioned the ex-KGB spy’s 2006
killing.
Litvinenko, 44, died when Russian agents Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun
slipped radioactive polonium-210 into his tea. They both deny the killing.
David Cameron yesterday described the murder as “absolutely appalling” and a
“state sponsored action”.
Litvinenko posted a blog headlined “The Kremlin Paedophile” four months before
he died.
In it, he highlighted a photo showing Putin kissing the stomach of a small boy
near the Kremlin.
He also claimed a young Putin had been overlooked for a senior position in the
KGB after spy chiefs allegedly discovered he was a paedophile
Litvinenko said Putin set about destroying any evidence of his paedophilia
after becoming director of Moscow’s FSB spy network
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He wrote: “Among other things, Putin found videotapes in the FSB Internal
Directorate which showed him making sex with some underage boys.”
Litvinenko was fired from the Russian intelligence services in 1998, fleeing
to Britain with wife Marina and son Anatoly in 2000.
He became a British citizen in October 2006 and was poisoned a month later at
a central London hotel.
Traces of radioactivity were found across London, on planes and at Arsenal’s
Emirates Stadium where Lugovoy had watched CSKA Moscow.
Litvinenko wrote a message as he lay dying in hospital in which he blamed
Putin for ordering his death.
In his 328-page report, inquiry chairman Sir Robert Owen concluded: “The FSB
operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by (then FSB chief
Nikolai) Patrushev and also by President Putin.”
Mr Litvinenko’s widow Marina yesterday said she was “very pleased” with the
report’s findings.
The report highlighted Russia’s lack of cooperation with the Met Police’s
probe into the killing.
Moscow has refused to extradite Lugovoy and Kovtun.
Russian officials even tried to lose British cops — in Russia to interview the
pair — by driving “fast and erratically”.
The report said the poison used to kill Litvinenko was slipped into a teapot
by Lugovoy and was not the first attempt to kill him. A month earlier they
had tried a similar hit but it did not work.
The report also said that Boris Berezovsky, a close pal of Litvinenko, was
given a grim T-shirt by a friend of Lugovoy when he visited him in London
four years after the murder.
On the front it read: “Polonium 210 CSKA LONDON, HAMBURG to be continued”,
while on the back were the words: “CSKA Moscow Nuclear Death is Knocking on
Your Door.
It is not clear what the mention of Hamburg refers to.
Putin opponent Berezovsky died in mysterious circumstances in 2013. He was
found hanging but a coroner recorded an open verdict.
Sir Robert also stated that Lugovoy had been treated as a national hero by
Putin since 2006. Russian officials last night vowed to give their own
version of how Litvinenko died.
Russian ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko branded the report “a
whitewash for British special services’ institutional incompetence”.
Kovtun, who the inquiry heard was trying to launch a career as a porn star,
said the accusations against him were “insane”.
Lugovoy, now a politician in Russia, said: “This is the latest confirmation of
the narrow mindedness and reluctance of the British to establish the cause
of Litvinenko’s death.”
MPs last night called for Putin to be punished for ordering a “nuclear attack”
in Britain. They are demanding the UK leads efforts to strip Russia of the
2018 football World Cup.
Lib Dem Tom Brake called for any Russians connected to the killing to be
banned from Britain.
He added: “An assault on our sovereignty which saw a British citizen murdered
on British soil in a nuclear attack requires nothing less.”
The PM vowed to raise the matter with President Putin but insisted it was
necessary to have “some sort of relationship” with Russia in a bid to end
the Syria crisis.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was blasted for staying silent on the
affair.
Tory James Cleverly said: “Time and time again he is on the wrong side of the
most important issues.”
Assassins tried twice to kill him
Report at a glance
THE main findings of Sir Robert Owen’s report into the death of Alexander
Litvinenko were:
– Litvinenko died from acute radiation syndrome on November 23, three
weeks after drinking tea containing polonium 210 in the Pine Bar of the
Millennium Hotel in London in 2006.
– The former spy was deliberately poisoned by Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry
Kovtun.
– The pair had tried to poison Litvinenko almost a month earlier at a
London office of a multinational security company called Erinys.
– Lugovoy and Kovtun were acting on behalf of others when they poisoned
Litvinenko. They knew they were using a deadly poison, but did not know
precisely which chemical.
– It is a strong probability that Lugovoy poisoned Litvinenko under the
direction of Moscow’s FSB intelligence service.
– Kovtun was also acting under FSB direction, possibly indirectly
through Lugovoy but probably to his knowledge.
– The FSB operation to kill Litvinenko was probably approved by the
group’s then-chief Nikolai Patrushev and also by Russian President Vladimir
Putin.
Blog told of lad grab
The ‘boy kiss’ photo
LITVINENKO had blogged about a bizarre incident which saw Putin kiss the
stomach of a small boy.
Putin stopped the lad, aged about four, as he walked across a square near the
Kremlin in June 2006.
Litvinenko illustrated the article with a photo showing the stunned boy with
his T-shirt raised and Putin kneeling in front of him.
He wrote: “Nobody can understand why the Russian President did such a strange
thing as kissing the stomach of an unfamiliar boy.’’
At the time Putin said it was a spontaneous gesture of affection.
Spy widow’s sanction call
THE widow of Alexander Litvinenko yesterday welcomed the ruling after her
ten-year campaign for the truth.
But she demanded PM David Cameron now impose sanctions on Russia, a travel ban
on Putin and axe all Russian spooks from Britain.
Marina, 52, said: “I am very pleased the words my husband spoke on his
deathbed have been proved.
“But now it is time for David Cameron. It is unthinkable that he would do
nothing in the face of these damning findings.” She added the Home Secretary
had “promised action”.