Spies, poison and a president accused of murder

Administration officials say new claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have ordered the poisoning of his critic and former KGB colleague Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 are “serious” and will be closely watched, with “relevant steps” possible by the U.S.

A British judge has concluded that two Russians, acting at the behest of Moscow’s security services and probably with approval from President Vladimir Putin, poisoned ex-KGB agent and fierce Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.

“For us it is absolutely unacceptable that the report concludes [that] the Russian state was in any way involved in the death of Mr. Litvinenko on British soil”, he said.

July 2014: Britain announces that in place of an inquest, Judge Robert Owen will instead chair a public inquiry into Litvinenko’s death.

“We are are deeply troubled by the findings”, said spokesman Mark Toner.

He said that she was a “remarkable woman” who had “made it clear from the very beginning that she would not be able to get on with her life until she had found the truth about her husband’s death”.

Owen said that taken as a whole the open evidence that had been heard in court amounted to a “strong circumstantial case” that the Russian state was behind the assassination.

He pointed to Mr Litvinenko’s work for British intelligence, criticism of the FSB and Mr Putin, along with his association with other dissidents such as Boris Berezovsky, as likely motives for the murder. He also accused Putin of being behind the 2006 contract-style slaying of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who exposed human rights abuses in Chechnya. Sir Robert said: “President Putin’s conduct towards Mr Lugovoy suggests a level of approval for the killing of Mr Litvinenko”.

The British judge said he was sure Lugovoy and Kovtun had placed the polonium 210 in a teapot at the Millennium Hotel’s Pine Bar on Nov 1, 2006. One Russian MP, Nikolai Kovalev, himself an ex-FSB boss, pointed out relations between Moscow and London would not be harmed by the report as there was no room for making them any worse.

“It gives Russian government opponents living in London the feeling they’re at risk of being killed”.

He joined Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, in calling for Putin to be put under an European Union asset freeze and visa ban. Britain accused the Kremlin of uncivilised behaviour but did not immediately signal it would take any stronger action.

Russian Federation has denied any involvement in the agent’s death and did not participate in the public investigation.

British officials on Thursday reiterated requests for Russian Federation to extradite the two accused killers, Andrei Lugovoi and Dimitry Kovtun.

Lugovoi, a former KGB officer, on Thursday called the allegations against him “absurd”.

Lugovoi insists the inquiry just allows Britain to further its political interests and says “I hope that this polonium trial will debunk the myth of the impartiality of British justice”.

The fall-out continued on Friday as Lugovoi rejected the inquiry as “nonsense”. Russia declined to participate in the six-month British inquiry, as did Lugovoy and Kovtun, the two Russian men who met with Litvinenko in London. Kovtun is now described as a businessman.

Crispin Blunt, Tory chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, told BBC News that “The world has to engage with him [Vladimir Putin]”.

Russia’s United Kingdom ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko, told RT that the inquiry’s conclusion was “not justified”, and that the investigation was “very politicized” and “biased”. Litvinenko lingered for three weeks, cadaverous and having lost his hair. He died at a London hospital 22 days later.

Information for this article was contributed by Jill Lawless, Katherine Jacobsen, Lynn Berry, Vitnija Saldava and Sylvia Hui of The Associated Press; by Alan Cowell and Ivan Nechepurenko of The New York Times; and by Griff Witte, Michael Birnbaum and Karla Adam of The Washington Post.