Photo: AP The report on the death of Alexander Litvinenko said that he was probably killed with the knowledge of the Russian leadership. Now British politicians are deciding how to punish Russia

What is a public inquiry?

On January 21, the results of a public investigation into the death of Alexander Litvinenko were announced at the Royal Court of London and at the same time in parliament. Public inquiries are held in the UK in cases of high public importance. Under Britain's Public Inquiries Act, he is appointed by a minister-level official. The investigation is carried out by a commission chaired by a person with the necessary knowledge and competencies, usually a judge (the commission may also consist of one chairman). The chairman has the right to swear in the participants in the investigation and demand criminal prosecution of those who evade testifying or hide evidence. The result of the investigation is a report, which presents the commission’s conclusions and makes recommendations. The chairman of the commission cannot establish anyone's civil or criminal liability, nor can he award compensation.

The widow of the murdered man, Marina Litvinenko, demanded a public investigation into the Litvinenko case. At first the Ministry of Internal Affairs refused (possibly for political reasons), but in the summer of 2014 it reconsidered its position (shortly after a Malaysian passenger plane was shot down over Donbass). In the Litvinenko case, the Home Office appointed retired London High Court judge Sir Robert Owen (he had previously led the coroner's investigation into the Litvinenko case) as chairman of the commission. Owen justified the need for a public investigation by the fact that this procedure allows the use of secret documents and evidence without declassifying them.

Owen interviewed dozens of witnesses, studied secret intelligence documents and came to the conclusion that Litvinenko's death was not an accident or suicide. “I am confident that Mr Litvinenko did not ingest polonium-210 by accident and did not intend to commit suicide. I am confident that he was most likely deliberately poisoned,” the judge points out in the final report. Owen concludes that the radioactive substance was added to Litvinenko’s tea by former FSB officer (and now State Duma deputy from the LDPR) Andrei Lugovoi and former GRU officer (and now businessman) Dmitry Kovtun.

According to the judge, the assassination operation “was, in all likelihood, approved” by the then head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, as well as President Vladimir Putin. The judge, in particular, makes this conclusion based on the testimony of witnesses - former KGB officer Yuri Shvets and Litvinenko’s friend Alexander Goldfarb, who insist: everything important that the Russian intelligence services do happens with the knowledge of senior management. In addition, according to Shvets, Patrushev himself could not gain access to polonium without the sanction of the country's leadership.

£2.2 million was spent on the investigation.

How was Litvinenko killed?

Litvinenko was poisoned on November 1, 2006, exactly six years after he arrived in the UK with his wife and son on November 1, 2000. Judge Owen suggested that the murder plan had been developed as early as October 2004.

Litvinenko was not poisoned on the first attempt, the judge believes. A radioactive trace was discovered in a meeting room at Erinys, where on 16 October 2006 Litvinenko took part in a business meeting with Lugovoi and Kovtun. But Litvinenko received a lethal dose of poison only half a month later.

Secret witness D3 during the investigation indicated that Kovtun called him from Lugovoy’s phone the day before the poisoning - October 31 and said that he had “a very expensive poison” and he should “add it to Litvinenko’s food or drink.” On October 31 and November 1, Kovtun and Lugovoy called several times with classified witnesses in Hamburg and London.

On the morning of November 1, Lugovoy called Litvinenko and asked to meet that same day at the Pine bar, Litvinenko himself told the police while he was already in the hospital. According to investigators, it was there that a radioactive substance was added to the tea of the former FSB officer, the amount of which was several times higher than the lethal dose.

Litvinenko became ill that evening and that night he sought medical help. Doctors initially suspected thallium poisoning, and it was only a few hours before his death on November 23 that the cause of the poisoning was determined to be polonium-210.

Why was Litvinenko killed?

Owen identified several possible reasons why Litvinenko's murder was organized. He did not single out any version as the main one.

The first version is due to the fact that the FSB considered Litvinenko a traitor. From the case materials it follows that back in 2001-2002, shortly after leaving for London, former colleagues in the intelligence services warned him that he had better return, otherwise he would face death for treason, reminiscent of the fate of Leon Trotsky (Litvinenko told about one such conversation during the investigation, human rights activist Vladimir Bukovsky).

Another reason is the close connection with Boris Berezovsky. In his testimony, Alexander Goldfarb, who knew Berezovsky closely, argued that Litvinenko took risks only because he was part of the former oligarch’s entourage. The judge recalled in the report that in 2004, unknown persons threw Molotov cocktails at the houses of Litvinenko and the emissary of the Chechen separatists, Akhmed Zakayev, who was in contact with Berezovsky.

Another motive is constant criticism of Vladimir Putin. In his books and other publications, the ex-KGB officer accused Putin of all possible crimes - from bombing houses to pedophilia.

Among the possible reasons for the murder, due diligence reports prepared by Litvinenko for private companies were named. Together with former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, he compiled a report on the past and connections of the head of the Federal Drug Control Service, Viktor Ivanov. The document is quoted in the case file: “In the confrontation between criminal groups, Ivanov took the side of Kumarin (leader of the Tambov organized crime group Vladimir Barsukov (Kumarin). - RBC). The main prize in this fight was the seaport of St. Petersburg, which was used as a transshipment point for drugs from Colombia: they were transported from St. Petersburg to Western Europe. Ivanov, collaborating with a criminal group, was under the protection of Vladimir Putin, who at that time was responsible for foreign economic relations in the [Anatoly] Sobchak administration.”

Another version: Litvinenko could have been killed because of his connections with foreign intelligence services. As Litvinenko’s wife said, her husband worked with MI5 or MI6. She believes he was feeding them information about Russian organized crime and its connections in the UK. Litvinenko also collaborated with the Italian competent authorities, handing over to them, in particular, documents concerning the authority of Semyon Mogilevich and the connections with the KGB of politician Romano Prodi.

Finally, Litvinenko could work with Spanish law enforcement agencies investigating the activities of people from the Tambov organized crime group. Litvinenko was involved in the investigation of the activities of the Tambov gang while still at the FSB. “Litvinenko was convinced that there was a conspiracy between the Tambov organized crime group and KGB officers, including Vladimir Putin and Nikolai Patrushev.”

What will the UK do?

Parliamentarians asked Home Secretary Theresa May, who presented the report, whether there were plans to introduce visa bans for those involved in the Litvinenko case. The British government intends to seek their extradition to the UK for further prosecution, May said. May did not support the proposal of opposition deputies to form a kind of “Magnitsky list” from those suspected of involvement in the “Litvinenko case”. But she expressed confidence that the assets of those involved in the case will be frozen.

The British Foreign Office intends to summon the Russian ambassador “to explain our concerns about the results of the investigation,” May said. She is confident that this matter will be discussed at the next bilateral meeting of the leaders of the two countries - David Cameron and Vladimir Putin. May herself is going to meet with Marina Litvinenko and discuss her proposals.

There is no unity within the ruling Conservative Party over the results of the investigation. Parliamentarian David Davis called the government's response too soft, calling for "all Russian intelligence officers to be expelled from the embassy" and financial measures to be taken against Patrushev and Putin.

But fellow Tory Crispin Blunt said cooperation with Moscow on Syria was a higher priority than remarks about Litvinenko's murder. British diplomats argue in the same spirit. This week, The Guardian reported that the British Foreign Office warned the Prime Minister's Office against worsening relations with Moscow because of the “Litvinenko case.” The Foreign Office considers Russia's assistance in resolving the Syrian conflict and in establishing a transition period in the event of Bashar al-Assad's departure extremely necessary, the newspaper explained.

Is there any threat to the accused?

The Owen report is the finale of the British investigation into the “Litvinenko case,” Goldfarb and the former head of the Yukos legal department, Dmitry Gololobov, are sure. “Only if the British authorities catch Lugovoy and Kovtun and bring them to London, where they are put in the dock, will there be a new trial,” Goldfarb notes. There are no absentee hearings of criminal cases in England, explains the agency’s interlocutor.

The new names that were mentioned in Owen’s report also cannot lead to a new investigation, Goldfarb believes: “Patrushev or the president of the country are the highest government officials, they have 100 percent immunity - they cannot be charged or declared defendants in the case.” “The result is a legal impasse: without the participation of the Russian state it is now impossible to continue the investigation, and Russia, in turn, cannot extradite Lugovoy and Kovtun, this would be a direct violation of the Constitution,” explains Gololobov.

In Russia, the Investigative Committee is also investigating the death of Litvinenko. But the suspects are unidentified persons, but the victims, in addition to Litvinenko, are Lugovoi and Kovtun themselves, who were in the bar and could, according to Russian investigators, also be poisoned with polonium-210.

The result of the public investigation does not threaten his position in the State Duma and the future career of deputy Lugovoi: colleagues from different factions supported him, but criticized the decision of the London judge. United Russia, Chairman of the Security Committee Irina Yarovaya, whose deputy on the committee is Lugovoi, called the British judge’s statement does not stand up to criticism “from the point of view of law and logic,” and the conclusions are similar to “tales from the crypt.” “If the investigation had been objective, there could have been consequences for Lugovoi. “And this looks like anti-Russian propaganda, not legally justified,” echoes the first deputy chairman of the Socialist Revolutionary faction, Mikhail Yemelyanov.

Do other intelligence agencies kill outside their own countries?

The most high-profile story of this kind during the years of Putin’s presidency is the trial in Qatar regarding the death of one of the leaders of the Chechen separatists, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev. He died in February 2004 in the Qatari capital Doha after a bomb planted under the bottom of his SUV exploded. A few days later, two Russians were detained on charges of murdering Yandarbiev and his guards, whom Moscow described as security officers temporarily assigned to the embassy and carrying out information and analytical work. The prosecution demanded the death penalty for the detainees, but the court sentenced both to life imprisonment. In December 2004, they were extradited to Russia “to serve further sentences.” In Moscow, the plane with Yandarbiev’s killers was greeted with a carpet at the ramp and an impressive motorcade, and the Federal Penitentiary Service never reported where they were serving their sentences.

Among foreign intelligence services, the Israeli intelligence service Mossad became most famous for the elimination of people on the territory of other states, in particular, publicly admitting the hunt for those involved in the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes during the Olympics in Munich in 1972. In 2010, after the murder of one of the leaders of the radical Palestinian Hamas movement, Mahmoud al-Mabuh in Dubai, the local police chief announced the involvement of 11 individuals associated with the Israeli intelligence services and using fake British passports in the crime.

In 2011, US President Barack Obama authorized a CIA and Marine special forces operation in Pakistan that ended with the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Pakistani intelligence services were unaware of the operation and scrambled fighter jets to intercept unidentified objects, which turned out to be American helicopters. The United States later denied that the purpose of the operation was precisely to kill bin Laden: CIA Director Leon Panetta claimed that if bin Laden had raised his hands up and surrendered, he would have been detained.

With the participation of Anastasia Mikhailova, Maxim Solopov, Georgy Makarenko, Farida Rustamova

Six questions about the Litvinenko murder