Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko

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Alexander Litvinenko at University College Hospital

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Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of Russian Federal Security Service, who escaped prosecution in Russia and received a political asylum in Great Britain. He authored two books, "Blowing up Russia: Terror from within" and "Lubyanka Criminal Group," where he accused Russian secret services of staging Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts to bring Vladimir Putin to power.

On November 1 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalised. He died three weeks later, becoming the first known victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome. According to doctors, "Litvinenko’s murder represents an ominous landmark: the beginning of an era of nuclear terrorism.".

Litvinenko's allegations about the misdeeds of the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) and his public deathbed accusations that the Russian government was behind his unusual malady resulted in worldwide media coverage.

Subsequent investigations by British authorities into the circumstances of Litvinenko's death led to serious diplomatic difficulties between the British and Russian governments. Unofficially, British authorities asserted that "we are 100 percent sure who administered the poison, where and how". However they did not disclose their evidence in the interest of a future trial. The main suspect in the case, a former officer of the FSB Andrei Lugovoy, remains in Russia. As a member of the Duma, he now enjoys immunity from prosecution. Before he was elected, the British government tried to extradite him, but without success, as described below.

Background

Main article: Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security service who escaped persecution in Russia and received a political asylum in Great Britain. In his books, "Blowing up Russia: Terror from within" and "Lubyanka Criminal Group", Litvinenko described Vladimir Putin's rise to power as a coup d'état organised by the FSB. He stated a key element of FSB's strategy was to frighten Russians by bombing apartment buildings in Moscow and other Russian cities. He said that Russian secret services have also arranged Moscow theater hostage crisis through their Chechen agent provocateur, that they organized 1999 Armenian parliament shooting, and that terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri was under FSB control when he visited Russia in 1997.

Just two weeks before his death Litvinenko accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of ordering the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya.

Illness and poisoning

On November 1 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill. Earlier that day he had met two former KGB officers, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun. Lugovoi is a former bodyguard of Russian ex-Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar (also reportedly poisoned in November 2006) and former chief of security for the Russian TV channel ORT. Kovtun is now a businessman. Litvinenko had also had lunch at Itsu, a sushi restaurant on Piccadilly in London, with an Italian acquaintance and nuclear waste expert, Mario Scaramella, to whom he reportedly made allegations regarding Romano Prodi's connections with the KGB. Scaramella, attached to the Mitrokhin Commission investigating KGB penetration of Italian politics, claimed to have information on the death of Anna Politkovskaya, 48, a journalist who was killed at her Moscow apartment in October 2006. He passed Litvinenko papers supposedly concerning her fate. On November 20, it was reported that Scaramella had gone into hiding and was in fear for his life.

The poison

Shortly after his death, the UK's Health Protection Agency (HPA) stated tests had established Litvinenko had significant amounts of the radionuclide polonium-210 (Chemical symbol: Po) in his body. British and US government sources both said the use of Po as a poison has never been documented before, and this was probably the first time a person has been tested for the presence of Po in his or her body. The poison was in Litvinenko's tea cup. People who had contact with Litvinenko may also have been exposed to radiation.

Polonium was identified only after Litvinenko's death, on November 23. Doctors and Scotland Yard investigators could not detect polonium earlier because it does not emit the high-energy penetrating radiation called gamma rays, which are typical for radiation damage (for example in Hiroshima and Chernobyl). Hospitals only have equipment to detect gamma rays. Unlike most common radiation sources, polonium-210 emits low-energy alpha particles that do not penetrate even a sheet of paper. An alpha-emitting substance can cause significant damage only if digested or inhaled, acting on cells like a short-range weapon. Litvinenko was tested for alpha-emitters using special equipment only hours before his death

Po-210 concentration in the body of Litvinenko

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The symptoms seen in Litvinenko appeared consistent with an administered activity of approximately 2 GBq (50 mCi) which corresponds to about 10 micrograms of Po. That is 200 times the median lethal dose of around 238 $\mu$ Ci or 50 nanograms in the case of ingestion.

The Times, in its article on December 1, 2006 said that it was recommended that the coffin with Litvinenko's body not be opened for 22 years. The maximum allowable concentration of Po-210 in drinking water is 15 pCi / L. Taking this rule as the basis for calculations, the basic content of Po-210 in the body should be 4.93 MCi / L. This corresponds to the concentration of Po-210 more than 1kg/kg. However, other sources say that the coffin that contains the body of Litvinenko cannot be opened for 6.5 years which gives the estimated contamination more believable, 489 ng/kg or 50 times LD₅₀ (inhaled) and 10 times (ingested).

Thallium - initial hypothesis

Scotland Yard initially investigated claims that Litvinenko was poisoned with thallium. It was reported that early tests appeared to confirm the presence of the poison. Among the distinctive effects of thallium poisoning are hair loss and damage to peripheral nerves, and a photograph of Litvinenko in hospital, released to the media on his behalf, indeed showed his hair to have fallen out. Litvinenko attributed his initial survival to his cardiovascular fitness and swift medical treatment. It was later suggested a radioactive isotope of thallium might have been used to poison Litvinenko. Dr. Amit Nathwani, one of Litvinenko's physicians, said "His symptoms are slightly odd for thallium poisoning, and the chemical levels of thallium we were able to detect are not the kind of levels you'd see in toxicity." Litvinenko's condition deteriorated, and he was moved into intensive care on November 20. Hours before his death, three unidentified circular-shaped objects were found in his stomach via an X-ray scan. It is thought these objects were almost certainly shadows caused by the presence of Prussian blue, the treatment he had been given for thallium poisoning.

Death and last statement

Grave of Alexander Litvinenko at Highgate Cemetery

Litvinenko died on November 23 at the age of 43

On November 25, an article attributed to Litvinenko was published by the Mail on Sunday Online entitled Why I believe Putin wanted me dead... In his last statement he said about Putin:

...this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition.
You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value. You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women.
You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.

Litvinenko's postmortem took place on December 1. According to doctors Litvinenko's body had five times the level of polonium-210 that would be considered lethal. Litvinenko's funeral reading took place on December 7 at the Central London mosque, after which his body was buried at Highgate Cemetery in North London.

Polonium-210

Sources and production of polonium

A freelance killer would not be able to obtain polonium legally from commercially available products in the amounts used for Litvinenko poisoning, because more than microscopic amounts of polonium can only be produced in state-controlled nuclear reactors (see commercial products containing polonium for detail).

Ninety seven percent of the world's legal polonium-210 (Po) production occurs in Russia in RBMK reactors About 85 grams (450,000 Ci) are produced by Russia annually. According to Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia's state atomic energy agency, RosAtom, all of it goes to U.S. companies through a single authorized supplier. The production of polonium starts from bombardment of bismuth (Bi) with neutrons at the Ozersk nuclear reactor, near the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia. The product is then transferred to the Avangard Electromechanical Plant in the closed city of Sarov . This of course does not exclude the possibility that the polonium that killed Litvinenko was imported by a licensed commercial distributor, but no one—including the Russian government—has proposed that this is likely, particularly in regard to the radiation detected on the British Airways passenger jets travelling between Moscow and London. However, Russian investigators have said they could not identify the source of polonium.

Polonium-210 is a synthetic element that has a half-life of 138 days and decays to the stable daughter isotope of lead, Pb. Therefore the source is reduced to about one eighth of its original radioactivity about a year after production. By measuring the proportion of polonium and lead in a sample, one can establish the production date of polonium. The analysis of impurities in the polonium (a kind of "finger print") allows to identify the place of production. It is assumed by Litvinenko's wife and his close confident that that British investigators were able to identify the place and time of production of polonium used to poison Litvinenko, but their findings remain unpublished.

Possible motivation for using polonium-210

Philip Walker, professor of physics at the University of Surrey said: "This seems to have been a substance carefully chosen for its ability to be hard to detect in a person who has ingested it." Oleg Gordievsky, the most senior KGB agent ever to defect to Britain, made a similar comment that Litvinenko assassination was carefully prepared and rehearsed by Russian secret services, but the poisoners were unaware that technology existed to detect traces left by polonium-210: "Did you know that polonium-210 leaves traces? I didn’t. And no one did. ...what they didn’t know was that this equipment, this technology exists in the West – they didn’t know that, and that was where they miscalculated."

Nick Priest, a nuclear scientist and expert on polonium who's worked at most of Russia's nuclear research facilities, says that although the execution of the plot was a "bout of stupidity", the choice of polonium was a "stroke of genius". He says: "the choice of poison was genius in that polonium, carried in a vial in water, can be carried in a pocket through airport screening devices without setting off any alarms", adding, "once administered, the polonium creates symptoms that don't suggest poison for days, allowing time for the perpetrator to make a getaway." Priest asserts that "whoever did it was probably not an expert in radiation protection, so they probably didn't realize how much contamination you can get just by opening the top (of the vial) and closing it again. With the right equipment, you can detect just one count per second".

Filmmaker and friend of Litvinenko, Andrei Nekrasov, has suggested that the poison was "sadistically designed to trigger a slow, tortuous and spectacular demise". Russian expert Paul Joyal suggested that “A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin.... If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you, and we will silence you, in the most horrible way possible”.

Investigation

Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service Terrorism Unit has been investigating the poisoning and death. The head of the Counter-Terrorism Unit, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, stated the police "will trace possible witnesses, examine Mr. Litvinenko's movements at relevant times, including when he first became ill and identify people he may have met. There will also be an extensive examination of CCTV footage." The United Kingdom Government COBRA committee met to discuss the investigation. Richard Kolko from the United States FBI stated "when requested by other nations, we provide assistance" - referring to the FBI now joining the investigation for their expertise on radioactive weapons. The Metropolitan Police announced on 6 December 2006 that it was treating Litvinenko's death as murder. Interpol has also joined the investigation, providing "speedy exchange of information" between British, Russian and German police.

On 7th July 2008, a British security source told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "We very strongly believe the Litvinenko case to have had some state involvement. There are very strong indications." Moscow was infuriated with the allegations and demanded an explanation from the British government. Shortly thereafter, the British government rejected the allegations, stating that no intelligence or security officials are authorised to comment on the case.

Polonium trails

Detectives traced three distinct polonium trails in and out of London. The trails were left by Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi, and Dmitry Kovtun. The patterns and levels of radioactivity they left behind suggested that Litvinenko ingested polonium, whereas Logovoi and Kovtun handled them directly. The human body dilutes the polonium before excreting in sweat, which results in a reduced radioactivity level.

The poisoning of Litvinenko took place at around 5 p.m. of November 1 in the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square. The bus he travelled to the hotel had no signs of radioactivity - but large amounts had been detected at the hotel. Polonium was subsequently found in a fourth-floor room and in a cup in the Pine Bar at the hotel. After the Millennium bar, Litvinenko stopped at the office of Boris Berezovsky. He used a fax machine, where the radioactivity was found later. At 6 p.m. Akhmed Zakayev picked Litvinenko up and brought him home to Muswell Hill. The amount of radioactivity left by Litvinenko in the car was so significant, the car was rendered unusable. Everything that he touched at home during next three days was contaminated. His family was unable to return to the house even six months later. His wife was tested positive for ingesting polonium but did not leave a secondary trail behind her. This suggested that anyone who left a trail could not pick up the polonium from Litvinenko.

Besides Litvinenko, only two persons left the polonium trails: Lugovoy and Kovtun who were school friends and worked previously for Russian intelligence, in the KGB and the GRU, respectively. These people handled the radioactive material directly and did not ingest it, because they left more significant traces of polonium than Litvinenko.

Lugovoy and Kovtun met Litvinenko in the Millennium hotel bar two times, on November 1 (when the poisoning took place), and earlier, on October 16. Trails left by Lugovoy and Kovtun started on October 16, in the same sushi bar where Litvinenko was poisoned later, but at a different table. It was assumed that their first meeting with Litvinenko was either a rehearsal of the future poisoning, or an unsuccessful attempt of the poisoning.

Traces left by Lugovoy were also found in the office of Berezovsky that he visited on October 31, a day before his second meeting with Litvinenko. Traces left by Kovtun were found in Hamburg, Germany. He left them on his way to London on October 28-31. The traces were found in passenger jets BA875 and BA873 from Moscow to Heathrow on October 25 and October 31, as well as flights BA872 and BA874 from Heathrow to Moscow on October 28 and November 3.

Andrei Lugovoi has said he flew from London to Moscow on a November 3 flight. He stated he arrived in London on October 31 to attend the football match between Arsenal and CSKA Moscow on November 1. When the news broke that a radioactive substance had been used to murder Litvinenko, a team of scientists rushed to find out how far the contamination had spread. It led them on a trail involving hundreds of people and dozens of locations.

British Airways later published a list of 221 flights of the contaminated aircraft, involving around 33,000 passengers, and advised those potentially affected to contact the UK Department for Health help. On December 5 they issued an email to all of their customers, informing them that the aircraft had all been declared safe by the UK's Health Protection Agency and would be entering back into service.

Prospects of prosecution

British extradition request

British authorities investigated the death and it was reported on December 1 that scientists at the Atomic Weapons Establishment had traced the source of the polonium to a nuclear power plant in Russia. On December 3, reports stated that Britain has demanded the right to speak to at least five Russians implicated in Litvinenko's death, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that Moscow was willing to answer "concrete questions." Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika said on Tuesday, December 5 that any Russian citizen who may be charged in the poisoning will be tried in Russia, not Britain. Moreover, Chaika stated that Russian prosecutors would present any questions to Russian citizens in the presence of the UK detectives.

On 26 January 2007 The Guardian reported the British government was preparing an extradition request asking that Andrei Lugovoi be returned to the UK to stand trial for Litvinenko's murder. On May 28, 2007 the British Foreign Office submitted a formal request to the Russian Government for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi to the UK to face criminal charges relating to Litvinenko's murder..

Reply by Russian government

Russian General Prosecutor's Office declined to extradite Lugovoi, citing that extradition of citizens is not allowed under the Russian constitution (Article 61 of the Constitution of Russia). Russia has said that they could take on the case themselves if Britain provided evidence against Lugovoi but Britain has not handed over any evidence. The head of the investigating committee at the General Prosecutor's Office said Russia has not yet received any evidence from Britain on Lugovoi. "We have not received any evidence from London of Lugovoi's guilt, and those documents we have are full of blank spaces and contradictions.

Vladimir Putin said on the issue: "According to the information I received from the prosecutor-general's office, such justification has not been provided by the British side. There was a request to extradite Mr. Lugovoy, but there were no materials based upon which we were supposed to do that. There is no substance in that request."

Yury Fedotov, Ambassador of the Russian Federation, pointed out that when the Russian Federation ratified the European Convention on Extradition it entered a declaration concerning Article 6 in these terms: “The Russian Federation declares that in accordance with Article 61 (part 1) of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, a citizen of the Russian Federation may not be extradited to another state.”

Legal expert opinion

Professor Daniel Tarschys, former Secretary General of the Council of Europe, asserted that another article of the Constitution "opens the door" for the extradition. According to Prof Tarschys, Russia ratified three international treaties on extradition in 1999. Article 63, paragraph 2 of the Constitution states that "he extradition of people accused of a crime shall be carried out on the basis of the federal law or international agreements of the Russian Federation". Article 15 of the Constitution affirms the precedence of international treaties when Russian laws contradict them..

Reply by Lugovoi

Lugovoi has accused British intelligence agents of being behind the killing, and claimed MI6 had tried to recruit him to spy on Russia. On October 27, 2007, the Daily Mail, citing unnamed "diplomatic and intelligence sources," stated that Litvinenko was paid about £2,000 per month by MI6 at the time of his murder. Allegedly, Sir John Scarlett, the current head of MI6, was personally involved in recruiting him.

Possibly related events

On March 2, 2007 Paul Joyal, a former director of security for the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, who the previous weekend alleged on national television that the Kremlin was involved in the poisoning of Litvinenko, was shot near his Maryland home. An FBI spokesman said the agency was "assisting" the police investigation into the shooting. Police would not confirm details of the shooting or of the condition of Mr Joyal, however, a person familiar with the case said he was in critical condition in hospital. It was reported that while there were no indications that the shooting was linked to the Litvinenko case, it is unusual for the FBI to get involved in a local shooting incident. A person familiar with the situation said NBC had hired bodyguards for some of the journalists involved in the programme.

Theories

Main article: Litvinenko assassination theories

Many theories of Litvinenko poisoning circulated after his death. Many circumstances led to suspicion that he was killed by a Russian secret service. Viktor Ilyukhin, a deputy chairman of the Russian Parliament’s security committee for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, said that he "can’t exclude that possibility" He apparently referred to a recent Russian counter-terrorism law that gives the President the right to order such actions. An investigator of the Russian apartment bombings, Mikhail Trepashkin wrote in a letter from prison that an FSB team had organised in 2002 to kill Litvinenko. He also reported FSB plans to kill relatives of Litvinenko in Moscow in 2002, although these have not been carried out.. State Duma member Sergei Abeltsev commented on 24 November 2006: said: "The deserved punishment reached the traitor. I am confident that this terrible death will be a serious warning to traitors of all colors, wherever they are located: In Russia, they do not pardon treachery. I would recommend citizen Berezovsky to avoid any food at the commemoration for his accomplice Litvinenko."

Many publications in Russian media suggested that the death of Litvinenko was connected to Boris Berezovsky. Former FSB chief Nikolay Kovalev, for whom Litvinenko worked, said that the incident "looks like hand of Berezovsky. I am sure that no kind of intelligence services participated." This involvement of Berezovsky was alleged by numerous Russian television shows.

An explanation put forward by the Russian Government appeared to be that the deaths of Litvinenko and Politkovskaya were intended to embarrass President Putin. Other theories included involvement of rogue FSB members or suggestions that Litvinenko was killed because of his research of certain Russian corporations or state officials, or as a political intrigue to undermine president Putin

Suspects

Igor the Assassin: The code-name for a former KGB assassin. He is said to be a former Spetznaz officer born in 1960 who is a Judo master and walks with a slight limp. He speaks perfect English and Portuguese. He may be the same person who served Litvinenko tea in the London hotel room.
Andrei Lugovoi: A former Federal Protective Service of Russia officer and millionaire who met with Litvinenko on the day he fell ill (1 November). He had visited London at least three times in the month before Litvinenko's death and met with the victim four times. Traces of polonium-210 have been discovered in all three hotels where Lugovoi stayed after flying to London on October 16, and in the Pescatori restaurant in Dover Street, Mayfair, where Mr Lugovoi is understood to have dined before 1 November; and aboard two aircraft on which he had travelled. He has declined to say whether he had been contaminated with polonium-210. The Crown Prosecution Service has charged him with murder and has sent an extradition request to Russia that includes a summary of the evidence, but the only third party to have seen the extradition request, American journalist Edward Epstein, has described the substantiation as "embarrassingly thin".
Dmitry Kovtun: A Russian businessman and ex-KGB agent who met Litvinenko in London first in mid-October and then on 1 November, the day Litvinenko fell ill. On 7 December Kovtun was hospitalized, with some sources initially reporting him to be in coma. On 9 December, German police found traces of radiation at Hamburg flat used by Kovtun. The following day, 10 December, German investigators identified the detected material as polonium-210 and clarified that the substance was found where Kovtun had slept the night before departing for London. British police also report having detected polonium on the plane in which Kovtun travelled from Moscow. Three other points in Hamburg were identified as contaminated with the same substance. On 12 December Kovtun told Russia's Channel One TV that his "health was improving".

Kovtun is currently under investigation by German detectives for suspected plutonium smuggling into Germany in October.

Vyacheslav Sokolenko: A business partner of Andrei Lugovoi.
Vladislav: The Times stated that the police have identified the man they believe may have poisoned Litvinenko with a fatal polonium dose in a cup of tea on the fourth-floor room at the Millennium Hotel to discuss a business deal with Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi before going to the bar. These three men were joined in the room later by the mystery figure who was introduced as Vladislav, a man, who could help Litvinenko win a lucrative contract with a Moscow-based private security firm.

Vladislav is said to have arrived in London from Hamburg on November 1 on the same flight as Dmitry Kovtun. His image is recorded by security cameras at Heathrow airport on arrival. He is described as being in his early 30s, tall, strong, with short black hair and Central Asian features. Oleg Gordievsky, an ex-KGB agent, has said that this man was believed to have used a Lithuanian or Slovak passport, and that he left the country using another EU passport. He has also said Vladislav started his preparations in early 2006, "some time between February and April," that he "travelled to London, walked everywhere, and studied everything."

Businessman and politician Boris Berezovsky said in a police interview that "Sacha mentioned some person who he met at Millennium Hotel," but would not "remember whether was Vlladeema or Vuchislav." Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb writes that according to Litvinenko, "Lugovoy brought along a man whom had never seen before and who had 'the eyes of a killer.'"

Leonid Nevzlin: A businessman living in Israel has been accused by Russian Procurator's office of links to several murders in Russia and was one of the key figures in the Yukos oil company.

Other persons related to the case

Yegor Gaidar: The sudden illness of Yegor Gaidar in Ireland on November 24, the day of Litvinenko's death, has been linked to his visit to the restaurant where polonium was present and is being investigated as part of the overall investigation in the UK and Ireland. However, other observers noted he was probably poisoned after drinking a strange-tasting cup of tea. Gaidar was taken to hospital; doctors said his condition is not life-threatening and that he will recover. This incident was similar to the poisoning of Anna Politkovskaya on a flight to Beslan. After poisoning, Gaidar claimed that it was enemies of Kremlin who tried to poison him. He gave reasoning that Kremlin was a least interested organization to kill him. He also published his thoughts in Financial Times.

Mario Scaramella: The United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency (HPA) announced that significant quantities of polonium-210 had been found in Mario Scaramella although his health was found to be normal. He has been admitted to hospital for tests and monitoring. Doctors say that Scaramella was exposed to a much lower level of polonium-210 than Litvinenko had been exposed to, and that preliminary tests found "no evidence of radiation toxicity". According to the 6 pm channel 4 (9 December 2006) news the intake of polonium he suffered will only result in a dose of 1 mSv. This will lead to a 1 in 20000 chance of cancer. According to The Independent, Scaramella alleged that Litvinenko was involved in smuggling radioactive material to Zurich in 2000.

Boris Volodarsky, a KGB defector residing in London, stated that Evgeni Limarev, another former KGB officer residing in France, continued collaboration with FSB, infiltrated Litvinenko's and Scaramella's circles of trust and misinformed the latter.

Marina Litvinenko: UK reports state Litvinenko's widow tested positive for polonium, though she is not seriously ill. The Ashdown Park hotel in Sussex has been evacuated as a precaution, possibly to do with Scaramella's previous visit there. According to the 6 pm channel 4 (9 December 2006) news the intake of polonium she suffered will only result in a dose of 100 mSv. This will lead to a 1 in 200 chance of cancer.

Akhmed Zakayev: The forensic investigation also includes the silver Mercedes by Litvinenko's home believed to be owned by his close friend and neighbour Akhmed Zakayev, then foreign minister of the separatist government in exile of Ichkeria. Reports now state that traces of radioactive material were found in the vehicle.

British Police: Two London Metropolitan police officers tested positive for Po poisoning.

Bar staff: Some of the bar staff at the hotel where the polonium contaminated teacup was found were discovered to have suffered an intake of polonium (dose in the range of 10s of mSv). These people include Norberto Andrade, the head barman of the bar and a long-time (27 years) worker at the hotel. He has described the situation thus:; "When I was delivering gin and tonic to the table, I was obstructed. I couldn't see what was happening, but it seemed very deliberate to create a distraction. It made it difficult to put the drink down."; "It was the only moment when the situation seemed unfriendly and something went on at that point. I think the polonium was sprayed into the teapot. There was contamination found on the picture above where Mr Litvinenko had been sitting and all over the table, chair and floor, so it must have been a spray."; "When I poured the remains of the teapot into the sink, the tea looked more yellow than usual and was thicker - it looked gooey."; "I scooped it out of the sink and threw it into the bin. I was so lucky I didn't put my fingers into my mouth, or scratch my eye as I could have got this poison inside me."

Chronology

Background history

June 7 1994: A remote-controlled bomb detonated aiming at chauffeured Mercedes 600 with oligarch Boris Berezovsky and his bodyguard in the rear seat. Driver died but Berezovsky left the car unscathed. Litvinenko, then with the organized-crime unit of the FSB, was an investigating officer of the assassination attempt. The case was never solved, but it was at this point that Litvinenko befriended Berezovsky.
November 17 1998: At a time that Vladimir Putin was the head of the FSB, five officers including Lieutenant-Colonel Litvinenko accuse the Director of the Directorate for the Analysis of Criminal Organizations Major-General Eugeny Hoholkhov and his deputy, 1st Rank Captain Alexander Kamishnikov, of ordering them to assassinate Boris Berezovsky in November 1997.

2006

October 2006

October 7: The Russian journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya is shot in Moscow.
October 16: Andrei Lugovoi flies to London.
October 16-October 18: Former KGB agent Dmitry Kovtun visits London, during which time he eats two meals with Litvinenko, one of them at the Itsu sushi bar (see 1 November 2006).
October 17: Litvinenko visits "Risc Management", a security firm in Cavendish Place, with Lugovoi and Kovtun.
October 19: Litvinenko accuses President Putin of the Politkovskaya murder.
October 28: Dmitry Kovtun arrived in Hamburg, Germany from Moscow on an Aeroflot flight. Later German police discovered that the passenger seat of the car that picked him up at an airport was contaminated with Polonium-210.
October 31: Dmitry Kovtun comes to London from Hamburg, Germany. German police found that his ex-wife's apartment in Hamburg was contaminated with polonium-210.

November 2006

November 1: Just after 3 p.m., at the Itsu sushi restaurant on Picadilly, Litvinenko meets the Italian security expert Mario Scaramella, who hands alleged evidence to him concerning the murder of Politkovskaya. Around 4:15 p.m., he comes to the office of Boris Berezovsky to copy the papers Scaramella had given him and hand them to Berezovsky. Around 5 p.m. he meets with the former KGB agents Andrei Lugovoi, Dmitry Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko in the Millennium Hotel in London. He later becomes ill.
November 3: Litvinenko is brought into Barnet General Hospital.
November 11: Litvinenko tells the BBC he was poisoned and is in very bad condition.
November 17: Litvinenko is moved to University College Hospital and placed under armed guard.
November 19: Reports emerge that Litvinenko has been poisoned with thallium, a chemical element used in the past as a rat poison.
November 20: Litvinenko is moved to the Intensive Care Unit. The police take statements from people with close relation to Litvinenko. A Kremlin speaker denies the Russian government is involved in the poisoning.
November 22: The hospital announces that Litvinenko's condition has worsened substantially.
November 23: 9:21 PM: Litvinenko dies.
November 24: Litvinenko's dictated deathbed statement is published. He accuses President Vladimir Putin of being responsible for his death. The Kremlin rejects the accusation. The HPA announces that significant amounts of Polonium-210 have been found in Litvinenko's body. Traces of the same substance are also found at Litvinenko's house in North London, at Itsu and at the Millennium Hotel.
November 24: Sergei Abeltsev, State Duma member from the LDPR, in his Duma address he commented on the death of Litvinenko with the following words: The deserved punishment reached the traitor. I am sure his terrible death will be a warning to all the traitors that in Russia the treason is not to be forgiven. I would recommend to citizen Berezovsky to avoid any food at the commemoration for his crime accomplice Litvinenko
November 24: The British police state they are investigating the death as a possible poisoning.
November 28: Scotland Yard announces that traces of Polonium-210 have been found in seven different places in London. Among them, an office of the Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, an avowed opponent of Putin.
November 29: The HPA announces screening of the nurses and physicians who treated Litvinenko. The authorities find traces of a radioactive substance on board British Airways planes.
November 30: Polonium-210 traces are found on a number of other planes, most of them going to Moscow.

December 2006

December 1: An autopsy is performed on the body of Litvinenko. Toxicology results from Mr Litvinenko's post-mortem examination revealed two "spikes" of radiation poisoning, suggesting he received two separate doses. Scaramella tests positive for Polonium-210 and is admitted into a hospital. Litvinenko's widow also tests positive for Polonium-210, but was not sent to the hospital for treatment.
December 2: Scotland Yard's counter-terrorist unit have questioned Yuri Shvets, a former KGB spy who emigrated to the United States in 1993. He was questioned as a witness in Washington in the presence of FBI officers. Shvets claimed that he has a "lead that can explain what happened".
December 6: Scotland Yard announced that it is treating his death as a murder.
December 7: Confused reports state that Dmitry Kovtun was hospitalized, the reason has not yet been made clear.
December 7: Russian Office of the Prosecutor General has opened a criminal case over poisoning of Litvinenko and Kovtun by the articles "Murder committed in a way endangering the general public" (убийство, совершенное общеопасным способом) and "Attempted murder of two or more persons committed in a way endangering the general public".
December 8: Kovtun is reported to be in coma.
December 9: German police find traces of radiation at Hamburg flat used by Kovtun.
December 9: UK police identify a single cup at the Pines Bar in the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair which was almost certainly the one used to administer the poison.
December 11: Andrei Lugovoi is interrogated in Moscow by UK Scotland Yard and General Procurator's office of the Russian Federation. He refuses to reveal any information concerning the interrogation.
December 12: Dmitry Kovtun tells a Russian TV station that his "health improving".
December 24: Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples on his return from London, on apparently unrelated charges.
December 27: Prosecutor General of Russia Yury Chaika accused Leonid Nevzlin, a former Vice President of Yukos, exiled in Israel and wanted by Russian authorities for a long time, of involvement in the poisoning, a charge dismissed by the latter as a nonsense.

2007

February 2007

February 5: Boris Berezovsky told the BBC that on his deathbed, Litvinenko said that Lugovoi was responsible for his poisoning.
February 6: The text of a letter written by Litvinenko's widow on 31 January to Putin, demanding that Putin work with British authorities on solving the case, was released.

May 2007

May 21: Sir Ken Macdonald QC (Director of Public Prosecutions of England and Wales ) say that Lugovoi, should face trial for the "grave crime" of murdering Litvinenko.
May 22: Macdonald announces that Britain will seek extradition of Lugovoi and attempt to charge him with murdering Litvinenko. The Russian government states that they will not allow the extradition of any Russian citizens.
May 28: The British Foreign Office formally submits a request to the Russian Government for the extradition of Lugovoi to the UK to face criminal charges.
- The Constitution of Russia forbids extradition of Russian citizens to foreign countries (Article 61), so the request can not be fulfilled.

Extradition requests had been granted in the past (For example in 2002 Murad Garabayev has been handed to Turkmenistan. However, Garabayev's extradition was later found unlawful by the Russian courts and he was awarded 20,000 Euros in damages to be paid by the Russian government by the European Court of Human Rights.) Article 63 does not explicitly mention Russian citizens, and therefore does not apply to them, but only to foreign nationals living in Russia. Article 61 supersedes it for the people holding the Russian citizenship.

May 31: Lugovoi held a news conference at which he accused MI6 of attempting to recruit him and blamed either MI6, the Russian mafia, or fugitive Kremlin opponent Boris Berezovsky for the killing.

July 2007

July 16: The British Foreign Office confirms that, as a result of Russia's refusal to extradite Lugovoi, four Russian diplomats are to be expelled from the Russian Embassy in London.
July 17: The Russia's deputy foreign minister, Mr Alexander Grushko, threatens to expel 80 UK diplomats.
July 19: The Russian Foreign ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, declared the expulsion of 4 UK diplomats from the British Embassy in Moscow.

October 2007

October 27: British newspaper Daily Mail journalists Stephen Wright and David Williams, reported that Alexander Litvinenko was an MI6 agent and was receiving a retainer of £2000 per month when he was murdered and that the current head of MI6 Sir John Scarlett was involved in his recruitment, quoting unnamed "diplomatic and intelligence" sources. Such claims have been denied by Marina Litvinenko and Oleg Gordievsky.

Comparisons to other deaths

Deaths from ingesting radioactive materials

According to the IAEA in 1960 a person ingested 74 MBq of radium (assumed to be Ra) and this person died four years later. Harold McCluskey survived 11 years (eventually dying from cardio respiratory failure) after an intake of at least 37 MBq of Am (He was exposed in 1976). It is estimated that he suffered doses of 18 Gy to his bone mass, 520 Gy to the bone surface, 8 Gy to the liver and 1.6 Gy to the lungs; it is also claimed that a post mortem examination revealed no signs of cancer in his body. The October 1983 issue of the journal Health Physics was dedicated to McCluskey, and subsequent papers about him appeared in the September 1995 issue.

Suspicious deaths of people involved in Russian politics

Comparisons have been made to the alleged 2004 poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, the alleged 2003 poisoning of Yuri Shchekochikhin and the fatal 1978 poisoning of the journalist Georgi Markov by the Bulgarian Committee for State Security. The incident with Litvinenko has also attracted comparisons to the poisoning by radioactive thallium of KGB defector Nikolay Khokhlov and journalist Shchekochikhin of Novaya Gazeta (the Novaya Gazeta interview with the former, coincidentally, prepared by Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was later found shot to death in her apartment building). Like Litvinenko, Shchekochikhin had investigated the Russian apartment bombings (he was a member of the Kovalev Commission that hired Litvinenko's friend Mikhail Trepashkin as a legal counsel).

Former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky believes the murders of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, Shchekochikhin, and Politkovskaya and the incident with Litvinenko show that FSB has returned to the practice of political assassinations, which were conducted in the past by Thirteenth KGB Department. A comparison was also made with Roman Tsepov who was responsible for personal protection of Anatoly Sobchak and Putin, and who died in Russia in 2004 from poisoning by an unknown radioactive substance.

Officers of FSB "special forces" liked to use Litvinenko photos for target practice in shooting galleries, according to Russian journalist Yulia Latynina.

References in popular culture

Channel Four Television Corporation has signed Mentorn productions to make a television drama based on the Litvinenko poisoning. Peter Kosminsky will be the director.
Johnny Depp is reportedly planning to make a film based on a forthcoming book.
A 2007 episode of "Law & Order Criminal Intent" featured a story that alluded to the incident and the 60 Minutes CBS News program aired a segment on "Who Killed Alexander Litvinenko?" on January 7, 2007. A transcript is available online.

Thriller writers Frederick Forsyth and Andy McNab claimed that the killing of Alexander Litvinenko is a classic case of fact being stranger than fiction and that they would be fighting a losing battle if they offered a Litvinenko-style story to a publisher.

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They wanted to lead a person to Litvinenko and make that person a suspect, an interview with Boris Volodarsky by Natalia Golitsyna, Radio Liberty, 6 March 2007. Machine translation.
Così gli 007 di Mosca hanno incastrato Scaramella, editorial, Il Giornale, 31 January 2007. Machine translation
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"Spy widow points finger at Russia". BBC News. December 10 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"Litvinenko Contact Says He Was Contaminated by Ex-Spy". Deutsche Welle World. 2006-12-13. Retrieved 2006-12-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"Ex-KGB spy 'was poisoned in hotel'", The Times, 8 December 2006
"Officials: Traces Predate Spy Poisoning", CBS News, 10 December 2006
Ann Curry. "Who killed Alexander Litvinenko?". MSNBC/NBC. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
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Litvinenko inquiry closes in on suspected killers The Independent. 06 January 2007. By Jason Bennetto, Crime Correspondent
"General Procurator's office of the Russian Federation filed criminal charges of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, and the attempted murder of Dmitry Kovtuna". Yahoo! AP. 7 December 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"POISON SPY: IT WAS IN HIS TEA Cups were 'nuked'". Daily Mirror. 2006-12-09. Retrieved 2006-12-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"Луговой не сказал, чем интересовались генпрокуратура РФ и Скотланд-Ярд". RIA Novosti. 2006-12-11. Retrieved 2006-12-11. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"Dead spy's Italy contact arrested". BBC. 2006-12-24. Retrieved 2006-12-24. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"Litvinenko friend breaks silence". BBC. 2007-02-05. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
"Litvinenko's widow challenges Putin to bring killers to justice". Retrieved 2007-03-11.
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The Constitution of the Russian Federation. Chapter 2. Rights and Freedoms of Man and Citizen
Britain cuts off its nose to spite Russia's face RIA Novosti
Garabayev vs. Russia
UK 'behind Litvinenko poisoning' BBC News
UK expels four Russian diplomats BBC News
^ Russia to expel 80 UK diplomats Cite error: The named reference "bbc2" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
"Revealed: Poisoned ex-Russian spy Litvinenko WAS a paid-up MI6 agent". Daily Mail. 2007-10-27. Retrieved 2008-03-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"Widow Says Litvinenko's Accuser Being Directed By FSB". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 2007-06-04. Retrieved 2008-03-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"Litvinenko's widow denies claims he was MI6 spy". Independent News and Media Limited. 2007-10-28. Retrieved 2008-03-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Gonzáles, Abel J (March 1999). "Timely action" (pdf). International Atomic Energy Agency. Retrieved 2006-12-08.
Gene, Carbaugh (6 May 1996). "Harold McCluskey & Hanford Accident". Vanderbilt University. Retrieved 2006-12-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Template:Ru icon"ВСТРЕЧА С ПРОШЛЫМ". Novaya Gazeta. 1 January 2004. Retrieved 2006-11-21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Template:Ru icon"Бывший резидент КГБ Олег Гордиевский не сомневается в причастности к отравлению Литвиненко российских спецслужб". svobodanews.ru. 20 November 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, Gardners Books (2000), ISBN 0-14-028487-7
Gurin, Charles (27 September 2004). "Roman Tsepov, RIP". Eurasia Daily Monitor. The Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved 2006-12-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Template:Ru icon"ДЛЯ ВНУТРЕННЕГО УПОТРЕБЛЕНИ". Novaya Gazeta. 30 November 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
"The Laboratory 12 poison plot". The Times. 8 April 2007. Retrieved 2008-01-21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
Template:Ru iconLatynina, Yulia (28 November 2006). "Вам удастся заставить молчать одного человека". Retrieved 2006-11-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"Daybreak Pictures Commissioned To Produce Litvinenko Poisoning Drama". All Headline News. December 7 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Depp to make Litvinenko film
Depp Takes On the KGB, by Mike Bruno, Entertainment Weekly
"Film-maker fears returning to Russia". Times Online. January 20 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
"60 Minutes Episode "Who Killed Alexander Litvinenko?"". CBS TV News. January 7 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Majendie, Paul (11 December 2006). "Spy writers say Litvinenko case stranger than fiction". Reuters. news.scotsman.com. Retrieved 2006-12-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

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