Chapter 4: Organised crime

¶9.20 As I have described above, the fight against organised crime had been one of

Mr Litvinenko's preoccupations since the start of his career in the Committee for State Security (KGB). His investigations into the activity of Russian crime gangs, and in particular the Tambov/Malyshev group based in St Petersburg, also revealed to him the extent of the collusion (as he saw it) between organised crime and members, including senior members, of the FSB.

¶9.21 Mr Litvinenko sought to expose these links, in particular in his book The Gang from

the Lubyanka, which contained detailed allegations of collusion between FSB officers and organised crime.

¶9.22 Further, Mr Litvinenko passed information to the Mitrokhin Commission alleging that

Semion Mogilevich, apparently one of the leaders of Russian organised crime, was an FSB agent with a longstanding personal relationship with President Putin.

¶9.23 Finally, I have also heard evidence that towards the end of his life Mr Litvinenko was

assisting the Spanish authorities with investigations that they were conducting against members of Russian organised crime groups, and that he thought it possible that he might give evidence against them in court.

¶9.24 It follows from this short summary that a theory that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun killed

Mr Litvinenko on the orders of one or more members of Russian crime gangs would not be implausible.

¶9.25 That theory, however, is not supported by the evidence that is available to me.

Detective Inspector (DI) Mascall stated that the police investigation has not uncovered any evidence linking Mr Mogilevich directly to the poisoning.3 More broadly, none of the evidence suggests that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were commissioned to kill Mr Litvinenko by members of crime gangs. More than that, I am satisfied for reasons that I shall describe below that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun in fact received their instructions from another source.

¶Mascall 29/83-85

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¶Part 9 | Chapters 1 to 12 | Who directed the killing?

¶Chapter 5: Mario Scaramella, Chechen groups,

¶Alexander Talik 9.26 There were a number of reasons why it was thought at one stage that Mr Scaramella may have been involved in Mr Litvinenko's death.

¶9.27 First, there were the simple factual points that the two men met on the day that

Mr Litvinenko fell ill, and that the itsu restaurant where the meeting took place was found to be contaminated. I am satisfied that the timing of this meeting was a pure coincidence, and that there was nothing sinister about it. It was no coincidence that they went to the itsu restaurant on Piccadilly – I have heard that it was one of Mr Litvinenko's favourite places. However, as I have explained (see paragraph 6.292 above), the contamination that was found there was centred on a table different to that at which Mr Litvinenko and Mr Scaramella sat on 1 November 2006.

¶9.28 Second, initial tests indicated that Mr Scaramella was himself heavily contaminated

with polonium 210. As Dr Harrison explained in evidence, however, the results of these tests were unreliable.4 Mr Scaramella was not in fact contaminated at all.

¶9.29 Third, in the early days of his illness Mr Litvinenko himself suggested that Mr Scaramella

may have been the person who poisoned him. I do not believe, however, that Mr Litvinenko ever thought this to have been true. As I have explained above, his early suggestion that Mr Scaramella may have poisoned him was in part the result of a desire not to admit to friends that he had allowed Mr Lugovoy to get close to him, and, in part, one element in a deliberate scheme to try and lure Mr Lugovoy back to the UK.

¶9.30 Mr Scaramella clearly regarded Mr Litvinenko as a friend. He had no motive to kill

him. Giving evidence to the Inquiry, DI Mascall stated that the police had no evidence to suggest that Mr Scaramella was involved in Mr Litvinenko's death.5

¶9.31 The limit of the allegations made against Mr Scaramella was that it was he who had

poisoned Mr Litvinenko on 1 November 2006. For the reasons set out above, I am quite satisfied that Mr Scaramella had no responsibility for Mr Litvinenko's death. I am, of course, fortified in this conclusion by the finding that I have already made that it was Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun who poisoned Mr Litvinenko.

¶9.32 The List of Issues was drawn up at an early stage of the inquest proceedings, and

adopted with only a few changes for the purposes of the Inquiry. As the case developed, it became apparent that there was no evidence to support the suggestion that either Chechen groups or Mr Talik had been involved in Mr Litvinenko's death.

¶Harrison 19/67-73 5

¶Mascall 29/79-82

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¶The Litvinenko Inquiry