Putin ‘probably’ approved' killing

Russia rejects findings of ex-spy’s murder

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin “probably approved” the killing of former spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, a British inquiry into his agonising death by radiation poisoning found yesterday.

Litvinenko, a prominent Kremlin critic, died in 2006 aged 43, three weeks after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium at an upmarket London hotel.

Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, two Russians identified as prime suspects by British police, had probably carried out the poisoning under the instruction of Russian security services, the inquiry said.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s office called the findings “extremely disturbing” and summoned Moscow’s ambassador to London for talks.

There were cries of “Yes!” at the high court in London as the main findings were read out.

Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, accompanied by her son, Anatoly, 21, embraced supporters afterwards.

She has spent years pushing for a public inquiry and for sanctions against Russia and a travel ban on Putin.

“I’m very pleased that the words my husband spoke on his deathbed when he accused Mr Putin of his murder have been proved true in an English court,” she said outside the court. Russia dismissed the findings. “We had no reason to expect that the final findings of the politically motivated and extremely non-transparent process would suddenly become objective and unbiased,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Lugovoi, now a far-right, proPutin legislator in Russia, described it as “absurd”.

The inquiry’s chairman, Judge Robert Owen, said he was sure that Lugovoi and Kovtun had placed polonium-210 in the teapot at the Millennium Hotel’s Pine Bar, where they met Litvinenko on November 1 2006.

“The FSB operation to kill Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr [Nikolai] Patrushev and also by President Putin,” he said.

Patrushev is a former director of the FSB, the successor organisation to the Soviet-era KGB spy agency, and has been a key security official since 2008.

Polonium-210 is a rare radioactive isotope only available in closed nuclear facilities.

Owen said there was no evidence to suggest that either Lugovoi or Kovtun had had any personal reason to kill Litvinenko and that they had probably been acting under FSB direction.

London’s Metropolitan Police said they still wanted the pair to be extradited.

Litvinenko, a former KGB agent turned freelance investigator who also worked for British intelligence, accused Putin of ordering his killing in a statement before he died on November 23 2006.

Owen said there had been powerful motives for the killing. Litvinenko was seen as having betrayed the FSB and regularly targeted Putin with highly personal public criticism, including an accusation of paedophilia.