Chapter 5: Events in London 16-18 October
Chapter 5: Events in London 16-18 October
¶6.65 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun flew from Moscow to London Gatwick on the morning
of Monday 16 October 2006. They stayed for two nights, returning to Moscow on Wednesday 18 October. The two men attended business meetings with Mr Litvinenko during the day on both 16 and 17 October, and went out with him for dinner on the evening of 17 October. For Mr Lugovoy, this was the latest in a series of visits to London during which he met Mr Litvinenko. For Mr Kovtun, by contrast, this was his first trip to London and also the first time he had met Mr Litvinenko.
¶6.66 Monday 16 October 2006 was just over a week after Anna Politkovskaya had been
murdered in Moscow, on Saturday 7 October. The day on which Mr Litvinenko had attended his citizenship ceremony, and then gone on to the memorial service for Ms Politkovskaya, had been at the end of the previous week – Friday 13 October.
¶Arrival in London 6.67 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun flew into Gatwick on the morning of 16 October aboard
Transaero flight UN333. The flight arrived at 10.48am. The registration number of the aircraft that made the flight that morning was EI-DDK.
¶6.68 In contrast to all bar one of the other aircraft on which Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun
flew during this period, EI-DDK was never tested for radiation by the UK authorities. I heard detailed evidence as to the reasons for this. Put very shortly, a request was made by the Metropolitan Police Service to test the aircraft. The aircraft was not made available and the police believed that the request had been deliberately frustrated by the Russian authorities. At the same time, the Russian authorities announced that they had tested the plane and found it free of contamination, although considerable doubt was subsequently cast on those results.
¶6.69 These events took place in early December 2006, at the very start of the police
investigation. They involved a number of different parties, both in the UK and in Russia. DI Mascall gave evidence about these matters.38 In summary:
a. The Metropolitan Police Service decided on 30 November 2006 that both the plane on which Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun had flown to London on 16 October (EI-DDK) and the plane on which they had returned to Moscow on 18 October (EI-DNM) should be tested for contamination. Both aircraft were operated by the Russian airline Transaero
b. On 1 December 2006, an official at the British Embassy in Moscow named Mr Knott notified both the Russian authorities and Transaero of the concern as to possible contamination of the aircraft, and of the advice that they should be tested before they next flew39
122c. On the same day, Mr Knott was informed both by officials in the office of Mr Gennadiy Onishchenko, the then Russian Chief Public Health Officer, and by Mr Alexander Tarrenets, the Deputy Director of Security for Transaero, that
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
both planes had in fact already been tested and that no contamination had been found40
d. In fact, aircraft EI-DNM flew into Heathrow on that day,1 Marina Litvinenko 3/19-20; INQ017734 (page 2 paragraph 6) Goldfarb 26/123; Emmerson 1/147 INQ022399 December 2006, and was tested for contamination by AWE scientists. They discovered secondary alpha radiation contamination in the area of the seats on which Mr Kovtun and Mr Lugovoy had sat on the flight on 18 October41
e. These findings were, clearly, in complete contrast to the communications that were being received on the same day both from the airline and from the Russian government to the effect that EI-DNM had been checked and was free of contamination
f. EI-DDK was in fact scheduled to fly to London on the next day,2 Marina Litvinenko 3/20-23 INQ019146 (page 14-15 paragraph 45) A translated copy of the law provided to the Solicitor to the Inquiry by the Russian Embassy in London is at INQ018962 December. That flight, however, was cancelled. Transaero explained at the time that the cancellation was due to disruption to their scheduling caused by the testing of EI-DNM in London42
g. It appears that EI-DDK did not in fact return to the UK for some time after that, and that it was never tested by UK authorities43
Some seven years later, in 2013, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) made a disclosure of documents to me in what were then the inquest proceedings into Mr Litvinenko's death. The documents purported to be records of the testing of both aircraft in Russia.44 DI Mascall stated in evidence that these documents had never been formally provided to the Metropolitan Police Service, and that he saw them for the first time in 2013.45 Although the effect of these documents is not entirely clear, they appear to indicate that the original Russian tests did reveal contamination on EI-DNM, but did not reveal any contamination on EI-DDK. If that is the effect of these documents, it is quite obviously inconsistent with what Mr Knott was told both by the Russian government and by Transaero in 2006.
¶6.70 In summary, there is an inconsistency between the assertion made by the Russian
authorities on 1 December 2006 that both planes had been tested and found to be clean, and the documents received in 2013 suggesting that the results of the Russian testing of one of the planes had been positive. There is also a conflict between the initial assertion by the Russians that EI-DNM was not contaminated, and the outcome of the tests conducted on that aircraft by AWE. Moreover, the delay of seven years in the production of the Russian test results remains unexplained. In the circumstances, I do not consider that any weight can be placed on what the Russian authorities have said about the testing of either of these aircraft, in particular the assertion that EI-DDK was tested and found to be clean.
¶6.71 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were transported from their aircraft to the terminal building
123by an airport bus. The bus that carried them was subsequently identified and tested, with no trace of contamination being found. There was evidence that the bus was regularly cleaned.46 For the reasons that I have explained above, (in paragraphs
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
6.21 – 6.24), in general terms I do not regard 'negative' evidence on this type of vehicle to be of any significance one way or the other.
¶6.72 On their arrival in the terminal building that morning, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were
stopped and questioned by a policeman named Detective Constable (DC) Scott, who gave oral evidence at the Inquiry.
¶6.73 DC Scott explained that he did not have any prior intelligence relating to either
Mr Lugovoy or Mr Kovtun. He stopped them simply because he thought they might be of interest.47 DC Scott's file contained a photograph of the two men taken when they were stopped, timed at 11.34am.48
¶6.74 DC Scott examined the two men's travel documentation and asked about the purpose
of their trip to the UK. He said that Mr Kovtun did not appear to be able to speak English, but that Mr Lugovoy could and answered the questions on behalf of them both. The men said that they were travelling for business. They gave a name that DC Scott wrote down as Mr 'Shadray', but which must have been a reference to Dr Shadrin. They also gave a phone number which DC Scott called – it was the offices at 58 Grosvenor Street of Dr Shadrin's two companies, Continental Petroleum Limited and ECO3 Capital Limited. DC Scott was told by someone there that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were visiting ECO3 Capital.
¶6.75 It appeared from his evidence that DC Scott was uneasy about Mr Lugovoy and
¶Mr Kovtun. He explained that the two men:
"were very evasive as to why they were coming to the UK… as I asked them questions, they weren't coming out with the answers that I wanted to hear or expected to hear. They were giving me very, very short answers, so there was no information in those answers."49 BER002661 Goldfarb 5/123 Shvets 24/100 Scott 9/43-44 Marina Litvinenko 3/141-142
¶6.76 Ultimately, however, once he had telephoned Dr Shadrin's offices and completed his
standard checks, DC Scott considered that he had no power to hold the two men any longer and therefore let them proceed.
¶6.77 DC Scott estimated that the two men left him at about 11.50am.50 It seems likely
that they in fact left him a few minutes earlier, since the telephone schedule records Mr Lugovoy making calls on his mobile phone to Dr Shadrin and then to Mr Litvinenko at 11.45am and 11.46am respectively.51
¶6.78 As we shall see, later on the same day Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun met Mr Litvinenko
and together attended a meeting with Mr Reilly. It seems reasonable to assume that Mr Lugovoy's brief call to Mr Litvinenko at 11.46 that morning was about that meeting, particularly since the records show that Mr Litvinenko called Mr Reilly a few minutes later.52
¶6.79 The meeting with Mr Reilly was to take place at 3.00pm. Prior to that, Mr Lugovoy
124and Mr Kovtun travelled into London and booked in at their hotel, the Best Western in Shaftesbury Avenue.
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
¶6.80 DI Mascall explained that, despite extensive enquiries, the police had been unable to
establish the means by which Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun travelled from Gatwick to central London on 16 October.53 It seems reasonable to assume, however, that the journey would have taken approximately an hour.
¶6.81 I heard evidence from Mr Krgo, who in 2006 was the House Manager of the Best
Western Hotel in Shaftesbury Avenue. He said that he remembered "quite vividly" meeting Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun on their arrival at the hotel on 16 October.54
¶6.82 Mr Krgo's evidence was that the two men arrived at the hotel at between 9.00 and
9.30 in the morning. He thought that these timings had come from timed images from the hotel's CCTV that he had viewed with the police.55 I think that Mr Krgo was mistaken on both counts. There is clear evidence, as set out above, that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun's flight was still in the air at 9.30am, and that they were still at Gatwick at 11.30am. Moreover, DI Mascall confirmed that, although the police did review the hotel CCTV system with Mr Krgo during their enquiries, the review established that the images for 16 October had already been automatically deleted by that time, so no footage of that day was ever seized.56
¶6.83 Mr Krgo also gave evidence that, following their arrival at the hotel, Mr Lugovoy and
Mr Kovtun completed registration slips and a credit card was pre-authorised to cover any incidental costs. The credit card slip showed that that process had taken place at 12.51pm.57 Although Mr Krgo thought that the credit card had been pre-authorised some time after their first arrival at the hotel, in light of the known timings set out above, I think it most likely that this process was in fact undertaken on their arrival, and therefore that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun arrived at the hotel shortly before 12.51pm.
¶6.84 Leaving timings to one side, Mr Krgo was confident as to the sequence of events
following the arrival of the two men. When they first arrived, neither of their rooms was ready. They left their luggage in the storage room and left the hotel for an hour or so, apparently to go to a nearby café that Mr Krgo had recommended. When they returned one of their rooms was ready. That was number 107, which was Mr Lugovoy's room. The two men then took their luggage up to that room, and got changed. They came down again about half an hour later and left the hotel. Mr Krgo did not see them again that day and it therefore seems likely that at this point they went to the meeting with Mr Litvinenko and Mr Reilly.58
¶6.85 Before turning to that meeting, it is necessary to address a submission that
125Mr Emmerson QC made in the course of his closing submissions. The general submission related to Russian State responsibility for Mr Litvinenko's death and the source of the polonium apparently used to poison him. Those are matters to which I shall turn in due course. However, in developing this submission Mr Emmerson made a factual point that is relevant to this stage of the narrative. Put shortly, he contended that, on the assumption that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun had attempted to poison Mr Litvinenko with polonium during the 16 October meeting with Mr Reilly, they must have brought the polonium with them from Russia, since they had no opportunity to acquire it from any other source between the time that they arrived on that day at
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
Gatwick and the time of the meeting that afternoon. I make it clear that that narrow factual proposition is one that I am not able to accept. The evidence of Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun's movements during this period is in fact fairly sketchy. As I have said, there is no evidence of how they travelled from Gatwick to central London, or where they may have gone or who they may have met on the way. There is no evidence as to whether they in fact went to Mr Krgo's café, or somewhere else entirely, after their first arrival at the hotel. And there is no detailed evidence of how they travelled from the hotel to Mr Reilly's offices.
¶6.86 There is of course no positive evidence that Mr Lugovoy or Mr Kovtun acquired any
polonium 210 in London that morning. But the difficulty is that there is in fact only limited evidence as to what they did, where they went and whom they met in the hours following their arrival. In those circumstances, I cannot exclude, as Mr Emmerson's submission invites me to do, the possibility that they obtained polonium 210 from some source in London between the time of their arrival at Gatwick and the meeting with Mr Reilly later that day.
¶Meeting with Tim Reilly 6.87 At some point during the afternoon of 16 October 2006, a meeting took place between
Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun, Mr Litvinenko and Mr Reilly. The meeting was held at Mr Reilly's offices at 25 Grosvenor Street, London.
¶6.88 Mr Litvinenko travelled into central London by bus that day. The bus on which he travelled was subsequently identified and tested, with no contamination being found.59
¶6.89 I have said a little about Mr Reilly and his relationship with Mr Litvinenko at paragraphs
4.130 – 4.133 above. I also described how Mr Litvinenko introduced Mr Lugovoy to Mr Reilly as a contact who might be able to assist Erinys in securing business with Gazprom, and how the three men first met in June or July 2006.
¶6.90 Mr Reilly gave detailed evidence about the meeting on 16 October.60 The basic facts can be stated fairly shortly:
a. It seems likely that the meeting had been pre-arranged, either earlier that morning or, more probably, before that61
b. There was some uncertainty about the precise timing of the meeting. Mr Reilly said that it was a morning meeting,62 but that cannot be right. There is clear evidence that Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun and Mr Litvinenko went to the Piccadilly itsu after the meeting, and that they were there at about 4.20pm (see below). Mr Reilly said that the meeting took less than an hour.63 It would seem, therefore, that the meeting started at about 3.00pm
¶c. The meeting took place in the boardroom of Mr Reilly's offices
126¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
d. The purpose of the meeting was for Mr Reilly to discuss with Mr Lugovoy Erinys' proposed business with Gazprom64
e. Mr Kovtun played no part in the discussions. Mr Reilly described him as, "a guy who was just watching me"65 INQ017734 (page 22 paragraph 76); Marina Litvinenko 4/101 (2003) NIQB 56 Marina Litvinenko 3/146 Reilly 10/108 Zakeyev 26/163-167
¶6.91 There are two other factual details about this meeting that are of some importance.
¶6.92 The first relates to the seating arrangements around the boardroom table. Mr Reilly
127was very confident in his evidence as to where each of the four men had sat at the meeting. He explained that he had wanted to sit facing Mr Lugovoy since he regarded him as "the most critical person" at the meeting. He therefore sat facing Mr Lugovoy at one end of the table. He placed Mr Litvinenko between them at the head of the table and Mr Kovtun, whom he regarded as the least important person at the meeting, next to Mr Lugovoy.66 Mr Reilly provided the police with a marked plan of the room showing where each of the attendees sat.67 It is reproduced below. Mr Reilly explained in the section of his oral evidence to which I have already referred that he sat at position 'A', Mr Litvinenko at 'B', Mr Lugovoy at 'C' and Mr Kovtun at 'D'.
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶Mr Reilly's plan of the Erinys boardroom68
128¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
¶Police photograph of the Erinys boardroom69
¶6.93 The second point concerns the refreshments provided at the meeting. Mr Reilly's
evidence was that he himself did not drink anything at the meeting, but that he provided each of the other three with either tea or coffee. He said that he also offered them a drink of water from the office water fountain, but they all refused.70
¶6.94 However, the most important evidence relating to this meeting is the evidence of
129polonium contamination of the boardroom that was discovered after Mr Litvinenko's death. Extensive contamination was discovered, in particular on two of the chairs and on a section of the green baize that covered the boardroom table. The contamination was described in evidence by DI Mascall,71 and is shown in diagrammatic form in a computer aided model of the room prepared by the Metropolitan Police Service,72 which is reproduced below.
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶Contamination levels in the Erinys boardroom73
130¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
¶6.95 The room was first tested on 25 November 2006, more than a month after the meeting
had taken place. Unsurprisingly, Mr Reilly's evidence was that the chairs in the room could have been moved during the intervening period.74 But the same was not true of the green baize cloth on the table. Mr Reilly said that John Holmes (who, as I have described above, ran both Erinys and Titon International) was always insistent that the baize should not be removed from the table.75 There was, therefore, no reason to think that the baize had been moved between mid October when the meeting took place and late November when the room was tested.
¶6.96 That is a highly significant consideration. As is apparent from the plan, the highest
level of contamination found in the room was on a patch of the green baize at one end of the table (shown in purple in the plan). Comparison with Mr Reilly's plan shows that this area was located between the positions in which Mr Lugovoy and Mr Litvinenko were sitting.
¶6.97 A1's evidence about the contamination in the Erinys boardroom was that the small
'purple' patch of contamination on the baize cloth represented primary contamination. In other words, as I have said, the reading was so high that it must have been caused by a primary source of polonium being exposed to the environment in that area. She said the scientific evidence provided strong support for this conclusion. Her view was that the rest of the contamination in the room was secondary contamination.76
¶6.98 Mr Reilly told me that the meeting on 16 October was probably the last time that he
saw Mr Litvinenko. Although Mr Reilly thought that he might have met Mr Lugovoy and/or Mr Kovtun again before Mr Litvinenko's death (there is no other evidence of any such meetings),77 he was clear that Mr Litvinenko was not present at any such meetings.78
¶6.99 Mr Reilly referred in the course of his evidence to radiation testing that was undertaken
at his house.79 The contamination schedule indicates that secondary contamination was found on some of Mr Reilly's clothing, and also on the steering wheel of his car.80 Mr Reilly also mentioned that he had a sudden illness on 26 October 2006, with symptoms of migraine and sickness.81 I am not in a position to make any findings as to whether this illness was caused in any way by the contamination that had been left in the Erinys boardroom.
¶6.100 There is one further matter that I should mention before leaving this subject. Both
131Mr Holmes and Mr Attew gave evidence that there had been a break in at the offices at 25 Grosvenor Street in mid June 2006.82 Considerable force was used to gain entrance to the offices, but nothing was taken. Both men thought, with hindsight, that the break in may have been linked to Mr Litvinenko's case. Mr Attew said, "In my business, that's a reconnaissance".
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006 itsu 6.101 The evidence before me was that, following the meeting with Mr Reilly, Mr Lugovoy,
Mr Kovtun and Mr Litvinenko went together to the itsu restaurant on Piccadilly. Mr Lugovoy made a purchase on his credit card there that afternoon that was timed at 4.22pm.83 There was no direct evidence as to where they sat on that occasion, but secondary contamination was found at one of the tables. Importantly, the table at which the secondary contamination was found was not that at which (according to the evidence of Mr Scaramella) Mr Litvinenko sat with Mr Scaramella on 1 November 2006.84 Given the primary contamination at the Erinys boardroom, it is a reasonable inference that the secondary contamination found at itsu was left by Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun and/or Mr Litvinenko at the time of their visit on 16 October.
¶The evening of 16 October 6.102 When they left itsu, the three men split up. Mr Litvinenko travelled back to his home
in Muswell Hill. The bus on which he travelled was subsequently tested and found to be free of contamination.85 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun remained in central London.
¶6.103 When she gave oral evidence, Marina Litvinenko told me about her recollection of that
evening.86 She said that it was a "normal, very peaceful evening". Marina Litvinenko had prepared spicy chicken soup for dinner. Mr Litvinenko liked hot food, and he ate the soup with some hot peppers. She said that he often added hot spices to his food. Some time after the meal, Mr Litvinenko suddenly began to feel ill. He vomited. She said that Mr Litvinenko continued to feel unwell for the next two days.
¶6.104 When interviewed by police in hospital, Mr Litvinenko had himself referred to an
incident "two or three weeks" before he went into hospital when he had vomited. He said that at the time he had assumed it was food poisoning.87
¶6.105 In the witness statement that he provided to the Inquiry dated 2 June 2015, Mr Kovtun
132suggested that Mr Litvinenko's illness had in fact pre-dated 16 October. He stated that Mr Litvinenko had told him whilst they were at itsu on that day that: "he would not be eating with us because he had been poisoned the previous day and had spent the entire night vomiting so much that he had had to call a doctor."88 Hatjiosif 2/99-101 Scaramella 27/97-99; LUG000092 INQ021208 (page 3) It should be noted that Mr Kovtun said something similar to this in an interview that he gave to Der Spiegel in late 2006.89 On the other hand, Marina Litvinenko's evidence – which she emphasised in a further statement served in rebuttal of Mr Kovtun's statement90 – was that Mr Litvinenko had not been ill prior to 16 October. She said that she was certain that this episode of sickness had not taken place on Sunday 15 October, and she was equally certain that neither she nor anyone else had called a doctor on this occasion. There is certainly no other evidence (for example from General Practitioner (GP) records or the account of Mr Prikazchikov) that a doctor was called at this time.
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
These are matters that would obviously have been explored with Mr Kovtun had he given oral evidence.
¶6.106 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun spent the evening having dinner with Dr Shadrin at the
Pescatori restaurant in Dover Street. Mr Lugovoy's credit card was used to pay the bill at the restaurant at 10.39pm that evening. The reservation book at the restaurant shows that the three men sat at table 17.91
¶6.107 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun then went on to a bar near the Best Western Hotel named
Dar Marrakesh, where a bill was paid with the same credit card at 11.05pm. The bill was for £9.00, which appeared to reflect the purchase of a shisha pipe.
¶6.108 The Pescatori restaurant and Dar Marrakesh were both found to have secondary
contamination. At the Pescatori, the table with the highest level of contamination was table 17.92 At Dar Marrakesh, one of the shisha pipes was found to be contaminated.93
¶6.109 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun spent the night at the Best Western Hotel. As I have
already said, Mr Lugovoy had room 107. Mr Kovtun's room, which had not been available earlier, was room 308. As we shall see, this was in fact the only night that the two men spent at the Best Western Hotel.
¶6.110 Both rooms were subsequently tested and were found to contain extensive
contamination.94 Room 107 was more heavily contaminated than room 308. A1 gave her opinion as to the interpretation of the readings taken in these two rooms.95 She said that the most significant result of this testing was the discovery of what she judged to be primary contamination in the u-bend of the sink in the bathroom of room 107. She explained that the scientists had opened the u-bend and found the contamination on detritus such as hair, etc. caught in the u-bend. The testing of the room had taken place on 22 December – more than two months after Mr Lugovoy had stayed in it. A1 said that the repeated use of the sink that would have taken place during that period explained the fact that relatively low readings were taken in the area of the sink itself – from where the polonium would have been washed away – in contrast to the sediment in the u-bend, where the polonium would have been caught. She added that even in the u-bend the initial levels of contamination may have been considerably higher. In a nutshell, A1's view was that the contamination in the u-bend was consistent with polonium being poured down the sink plughole.
¶6.111 There are three observations that I would make about these findings at this stage:
a. First, and perhaps obviously, the coincidence of primary contamination being found both on the boardroom table at the Erinys offices where Mr Lugovoy sat at a meeting on 16 October and also in the bathroom of the hotel room that he occupied that day is very striking
133b. Second, although there is no direct evidence as to precisely how the polonium came to be in the u-bend in room 107, the inference can be drawn that it was poured down the sink by Mr Lugovoy and/or Mr Kovtun either in the act of preparing a solution to be used in an attempt to poison Mr Litvinenko at the Erinys meeting, or in disposing of the remainder of the solution later in the day. I
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
will assess the strength of that inference in due course, by reference to the totality of the evidence
c. Third, it is to be noted in particular in this regard (i) that no similar primary contamination was found in any of the waste pipes of the bathroom in room 848 of the Sheraton Hotel, where Mr Lugovoy stayed on the nights of 25-27 October; and (ii) that a similar deposit of primary contamination was found in the u-bend of the sink in room 382 of the Millennium Hotel, where Mr Kovtun stayed on 1 November 2006
¶Moving hotel 6.112 On the following day, Tuesday 17 October 2006, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun moved
from the Best Western Hotel to the Parkes Hotel in Knightsbridge. They stayed at the Parkes Hotel on the night of 17 October before, as we shall see, flying back to Moscow on Wednesday 18 October. The rooms at the Best Western had been booked for both nights. Why they moved remains unclear. What the evidence does show is as follows:
a. As I have described above, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun arrived at and checked into the Best Western Hotel at about 12.51pm on 16 October. They were given access to one of their rooms – room 107 – an hour or so later before they left for the meeting with Mr Reilly at Erinys
b. At 3.07pm on the same day – i.e. at about the time of the meeting at Erinys – rooms were booked by email for Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun at the Parkes Hotel for the next night,17 Berezovsky 25/7 Goldfarb 26/122 INQ019146 (page 25 paragraph 77) Mascall 8/75 INQ019031; INQ019054 Dombey 23/24-30; INQ020031 (page 2 paragraphs S9-S10) The Minister may amend this Restriction Notice at any time. October. DI Mascall's evidence was that these bookings, unlike the earlier bookings, were made by Mr Lugovoy's daughter, Tatiana Lugovoya96
c. Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun checked out of the Best Western Hotel at about 1.30pm on 17 October. They told the receptionist simply that they were leaving a day early. They did not ask for a refund97
d. The two men checked into the Parkes Hotel at about 2.00pm on the same day. They were greeted by the Front of House Manager at the hotel, Giuliana Rondoni, from whom I heard evidence. Ms Rondoni recalled that they had told her that they had come from another hotel in Piccadilly that was overbooked98
¶6.113 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun stayed, respectively, in rooms 23 and 25 at the Parkes
¶Hotel.99 Secondary contamination was found in both rooms.100
¶Meetings with Dr Shadrin 6.114 Later on 17 October, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun had a meeting with Dr Shadrin in the
134CPL offices at 58 Grosvenor Street. As I have already mentioned, they had had dinner with him the night before. The Visitors' Book held at the entrance to the building101 indicates that the two men arrived at 3.00pm and left at 5.30pm on 17 October. The entries in the book also indicate that the two men had visited the building the day
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
before, and Dr Shadrin's evidence was that they may have had a meeting there prior to going out to dinner at the Pescatori restaurant.
¶6.115 Dr Shadrin gave detailed oral evidence to the Inquiry about his relationship with
Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun and the various meetings that he had with them in London during this period.102 I also received oral evidence on this topic from several of Dr Shadrin's colleagues – Nikolay Gorokov,103 Dariya Davison104 and Vladimir Voronoff.105 The witness statement served by Mr Kovtun dated 2 June 2015106 addresses the business dealings that he and Mr Lugovoy had with these individuals.
¶6.116 As I have indicated above, there is a good deal of uncontroversial evidence regarding
Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun's dealings with CPL. In the course of his oral evidence, Dr Shadrin explained in great detail how in 2005 CPL had obtained oil and gas exploration licences over blocks of land in Western Siberia. The licences had been purchased by raising funding in the London market. He went on to describe how the exploitation of these licences was subsequently put at risk by the actions of a group in Russia whom he variously described as 'criminals' and 'raiders'.
¶6.117 In summary, Dr Shadrin's evidence was that this group, which was apparently led
by a man named Mr Livshitz, attempted to cut CPL out of the exploration of the blocks of land by forging rival licences and bribing government officials. According to Dr Shadrin, CPL took two courses of action in response to this attack. The first (which was Dr Shadrin's preferred course) was to challenge the forged licences in the Russian courts. The second, which Dr Shadrin said was insisted upon by the investors and by the CPL Chairman Mr Balfour, was to investigate and to attempt to put pressure on Mr Livshitz and his group. This led to the introduction of Mr Voronoff to the company. He, in turn, suggested that Mr Lugovoy and his company Ninth Wave should be instructed to assist. Mr Lugovoy appointed Mr Kovtun as Project Manager. Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were tasked with preparing a report on the Livshitz group.
¶6.118 This general outline appears to me to be an uncontentious summary of the evidence
of the various witnesses. What is of particular significance for present purposes is the stage that these matters had reached by the autumn of 2006.
¶6.119 Dr Shadrin's evidence was that the difficulties with the Livshitz group had been largely resolved by the summer of 2006.
¶6.120 CPL had been successful in the domestic legal challenges that it pursued in Russia,
both before the Arbitrazh Court and then the Court of Appeal. Following the decision of the Court of Appeal, the Ministry for Natural Resources had reissued CPL's licences. All this had taken place by June 2006.107
¶6.121 With regard to CPL's other line of attack, Dr Shadrin stated that Mr Lugovoy and
135Mr Kovtun had prepared and submitted their report by the end of July 2006, prior to which he had held two or three meetings with them in Moscow. He described their report in the following terms:
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
"Basically, they prepared a report on the group who was trying to take over our assets illegally. They identified two people from – one from police department and another from the prosecution office who were providing protection to this group, and also they identified their high profile connections as well.
They submitted this report, and that was the only result of their work on the project."108 INQ006741 Evans 7/31 Shadrin 14/154-155
Dr Shadrin thought that Mr Lugovoy's bill for preparing the report had been paid by July 2006.109
¶6.122 This outline raises a question as to the subject matter of the meetings that Mr Lugovoy
and Mr Kovtun had with Dr Shadrin in the autumn of 2006. If the Livshitz affair had effectively been concluded, what were they discussing?
¶6.123 Dr Shadrin was asked about this when he gave evidence. Putting the matter shortly,
his response was that by the autumn of 2006 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were pitching for new business. He recalled the letter of introduction being provided to support Mr Kovtun's visa application, and said that Mr Balfour had provided the letter to facilitate discussions with Mr Kovtun about his possible future involvement with CPL. As Dr Shadrin put it, as at 3 October 2006, which was the date of the letter, "it would be accurate to say that [Mr Kovtun was] pitching to provide consultant services… because at that time obviously their previous role… has been finalised and the new role, we haven't negotiated out." He further stressed that he did not regard his discussions with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun at that time as a matter of any urgency.110
¶6.124 With regard to his meetings with Mr Kovtun and Mr Lugovoy on 16 and 17 October
2006, Dr Shadrin recalled that they had discussed two possible future projects. One related to further investigation/surveillance of Mr Livshitz and his group and the other concerned the possibility that Mr Lugovoy's company might be awarded a contract to provide physical security at the sites in Siberia once drilling began, possibly as a joint venture with security firms in the UK. He said that Mr Lugovoy also sought his advice on raising finance for other unrelated business projects, including one relating to the bottling company with which he was involved. Dr Shadrin also stated that, given their possible future working relationship, he asked Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun to provide copies of formal documents required under the Know Your Client protocols.111
¶6.125 The statement that Mr Kovtun provided to the Inquiry dated 2 June 2015112 gives a
rather different account of his engagement with Dr Shadrin at this time. That statement gives the clear impression that the investigation into the Livshitz group was then still underway. More than that, the statement suggests that one of the purposes of his trip to London on 16 October 2006 was to discuss with Dr Shadrin a particular piece of information that Mr Kovtun claimed to have discovered, namely that members of the Livshitz group had been hacking the emails of an American company named Harvest and Hicks, in particular those of a senior manager named Mr Byron.
¶6.126 Dr Shadrin had by this stage already given oral evidence to the Inquiry and he addressed these points in a further written statement dated 24 June 2015.113 Put
136¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
shortly, Dr Shadrin disputed Mr Kovtun's account. He said that there had been no need for Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun to visit him in London at this time, since he had been a regular visitor to Moscow and they could have seen him there (as, indeed, they had done previously). Dr Shadrin also said in his further statement that he had, "no recollection of being provided with any reports pertaining to a US company called Harvest and Hicks or a person called Mr Byron".
¶6.127 The discrepancies between Mr Kovtun's account and that given by Dr Shadrin are
certainly matters that would have been explored with Mr Kovtun had he given oral evidence to the Inquiry. Since he did not do so, I am unable to reach any detailed conclusions on these matters. But what can be said is that I have no reason to doubt the truthfulness of what Dr Shadrin has told the Inquiry. That, in turn, gives rise to the distinct possibility that Mr Kovtun has exaggerated, or perhaps entirely fabricated, the business justification for his travel to London on this occasion. I will return to this point in due course.
¶6.128 Before leaving this topic, I should add that secondary contamination was found at a
number of places at CPL's offices in Grosvenor Street.114 As we shall see, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun paid a number of visits to these offices during the period in question, and it is not possible to state on which occasion or occasions this contamination might have occurred.
¶Meeting at RISC 6.129 The evidence was that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun attended one further business
meeting on the afternoon of 17 October, on this occasion in company with Mr Litvinenko. The meeting was with Mr Quirke of RISC. It took place at RISC's offices at 1 Cavendish Place, in Mayfair. Mr Quirke had, of course, met Mr Litvinenko and Mr Lugovoy (although not Mr Kovtun) previously, and I have referred to the evidence about those meetings above at paragraphs 4.115 to 4.119.
¶6.130 Mr Quirke gave oral evidence about the meeting.115 He said that it had been arranged a
fortnight or so in advance by Mr Litvinenko.116 He was a little uncertain as to the precise timing of the meeting, but thought that it was already underway by shortly before 6.00pm.117 It would therefore appear that the meeting took place after Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun's meeting with Dr Shadrin.
¶6.131 Mr Litvinenko had travelled down to central London by bus earlier in the afternoon.
The bus on which he travelled was subsequently identified and tested; no radiation was detected.118
¶6.132 Mr Quirke's evidence was that the meeting took less than an hour. Mr Lugovoy led
137the discussions. Mr Quirke said he had not met Mr Kovtun before and had not been expecting him to attend.119 He said that Mr Kovtun took no part in the meeting other than operating a minidisc containing information.120
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶6.133 Discussion at the meeting centred on Mr Lugovoy and Mr Litvinenko's continuing
investigations regarding the Stolichnaya case. Mr Lugovoy raised the possibility of pressurising one of the Russian companies that was acting against Stolichnaya's interests by forcing its value down, a process he described as "greenmail". Mr Quirke stated that this was not a course that was subsequently pursued.121
¶6.134 Towards the end of the meeting, Mr Kovtun gave the minidisc that he had been operating to Mr Quirke, who stated that he subsequently passed it to the police.122
¶6.135 The RISC offices were subsequently monitored for radiation and secondary
contamination was discovered at various places, including chairs in the boardroom.123 The highest reading was registered on a CD. It seems likely that this was the minidisc that Mr Kovtun gave to Mr Quirke during the meeting that I have just described.
¶Events of the evening of 17 October 6.136 It appears that after the meeting with Mr Quirke, Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun and
Mr Litvinenko returned together to the Parkes Hotel. A witness statement from Alexey Valuev was read in this regard.124 Mr Valuev was the son of a business associate of Mr Lugovoy. He explained that Mr Lugovoy had arranged to meet him at the hotel that evening so that Mr Lugovoy could give him some money from his father. He recalled Mr Lugovoy arriving back at the hotel with Mr Kovtun and Mr Litvinenko.
¶6.137 Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun and Mr Litvinenko subsequently went out for the evening
in London. As part of their enquiries, the police traced the establishments that they had visited. DI Mascall gave evidence that the three men had gone for dinner at a Chinese restaurant named the Golden Dragon in Gerrard Street. There was evidence that Mr Lugovoy paid the bill at the restaurant using his credit card at 9.49pm. Further similar credit card evidence showed that the men then moved on to a bar named Cafe Boheme in Old Compton Street.125
¶6.138 Mr Litvinenko himself gave a brief description of the events of this evening in the
course of his interviews with the police whilst he was in hospital. He referred to going to a Chinese restaurant and then to a pub in Soho. He said that he had only drunk green tea and a glass of Coca-Cola at the restaurant. He said that the other two had been drinking sake and had offered him some, but he had refused as "I don't drink alcohol generally". It appears from Mr Litvinenko's account that he went with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun to the Cafe Boheme, but on arrival he didn't like the place and decided to go home. He said that he travelled back to Muswell Hill on a 134 bus from Tottenham Court Road, arriving home at about 11.00pm.126 The bus on which Mr Litvinenko travelled that night was identified and tested; no radiation was detected.127
¶6.139 DI Mascall explained that further evidence from Mr Lugovoy's credit card showed that
138Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun had subsequently gone to a nightclub named Hey Jo, where Mr Lugovoy purchased more drinks. The receipts make it clear that Mr Lugovoy
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
was in the club that evening.128 The evidence was that the two men had returned to the Parkes Hotel at about 3.00am.129 DI Mascall subsequently confirmed that he had found no evidence that Mr Litvinenko had ever been to Hey Jo nightclub.130
¶6.140 The Golden Dragon restaurant, Cafe Boheme and Hey Jo nightclub were all tested
for alpha radiation. No contamination was found at the Golden Dragon or at Cafe Boheme. Secondary contamination was, however, found at Hey Jo nightclub.131
¶6.141 There is one further feature of the evidence about what took place that evening that
¶I must address.
¶6.142 In the witness statement dated 2 June 2015 that Mr Kovtun provided to the Inquiry, he
gave a description of an event that took place during the meal at the Golden Dragon on the evening of 17 October 2006. The account that he gave was as follows:
"In the restaurant Litvinenko talked about the scoundrel Y. Felshtinsky, relating how he had robbed him, unfairly dividing the fee for the book 'Blowing up Russia', and how it was easy to obtain political asylum in Great Britain through A. Goldfarb, whom he called a 'CIA agent'. Litvinenko also suggested identifying wealthy citizens in Russia with property in Spain and giving him their details. Using his connections within the Spanish police, he would create problems for them there, and we would then make contact with them and solve those problems for a significant material reward.
Somehow or other, the subsequent conversation turned to Chechens, and Litvinenko started boasting about his friendship with Sakayev and his brothers, hinting at his indirect involvement in the events in Nalchik where over 70 Russian police officers were killed in an attack on the town by Islamic militants. I was fed up with listening to his harangue and gladly complied with Lugovoy's request to leave them. I went outside and walked about not far from the Chinese restaurant for about 30 minutes."
¶6.143 I draw attention to this section of Mr Kovtun's statement because it is seriously at odds with other accounts that both he and Mr Lugovoy have previously given.
¶6.144 Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun gave a joint press conference in Moscow on 31 May
2007 – less than a year after Mr Litvinenko's death. During the course of the press conference, both of them gave accounts of conversations that they said had taken place on 16/17 October between Mr Litvinenko and Mr Kovtun about Boris Berezovsky.
¶6.145 Mr Kovtun said that Mr Litvinenko had talked to him on the evening of 16 October
whilst they were waiting for a cab. He said that Mr Litvinenko had complained to him about Mr Berezovsky cutting his salary. He said that Mr Litvinenko claimed that it had been he and MI6 who had obtained asylum for Mr Berezovsky.132
¶6.146 Earlier in the same press conference, Mr Lugovoy had given an account of a conversation which he said had taken place between Mr Litvinenko and Mr Kovtun at
139¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
the Golden Dragon restaurant on the evening of 17 October. Mr Lugovoy said that the conversation had taken place while he was away from the table. He said as follows:133
"In this connection I would like to tell you what Sasha had told Dmitry Kovtun not long before his death, when we met together in October of last year. During our dinner at one of the Chinatown restaurants in London, Litvinenko, enlarging on the subject of ways to make money, touched upon the resumed negotiations between Russia and the UK regarding Berezovsky's extradition. Lamenting the fact that Berezovsky did not appreciate the services rendered to him by Litvinenko, who allegedly saved his life more than once, Litvinenko told Kovtun, that he had the most important materials of compromising nature, regarding the illegal activity of Berezovsky on the UK territory. If any part of the documents pertaining to the circumstances of his obtaining the refugee status were to be made public, then he (Berezovsky) would have huge problems. Litvinenko hinted to Dima, that especially now, when Russia raised an issue with the UK of extraditing Berezovsky, it would be very opportune to let Berezovsky know that such materials exist, and to put a value of several million dollars on them. Still being financially dependent on Berezovsky – Berezovsky was paying his son's tuition fees and the family's accommodation in London, Litvinenko – Litvinenko asked Kovtun to find a reliable person, whom he would introduce to Berezovsky, which person would be able to familiarise Berezovsky with the materials, compromising him. Litvinenko was absolutely sure of the success of this enterprise, referring to the explosive nature and authenticity of the compromising materials he possessed. Since the conversation took place when I left the table, Litvinenko asked Kovtun to keep that conversation between them, fearing that I, as a person who could contact Berezovsky at any point, would expose Litvinenko's idea to him."
¶6.147 Several years after the press conference, in 2011, Mr Lugovoy provided a lengthy
witness statement in the course of the Terluk libel proceedings. One section of that statement was devoted to a detailed narrative account of the meetings that he and Mr Kovtun had had with Mr Litvinenko in October and November 2006. In that statement, Mr Lugovoy made no mention at all of anything that Mr Litvinenko said at the Golden Dragon restaurant – whether in terms of a private discussion between Mr Litvinenko and Mr Kovtun concerning Mr Berezovsky (as Mr Lugovoy had described at the press conference) or in terms of a discussion about Russians in Spain, as Mr Kovtun now asserts. Nor did he say anything about a discussion between Mr Kovtun and Mr Litvinenko on 16 October while they were waiting for a cab. Rather, Mr Lugovoy gave an account of a conversation between Mr Kovtun and Mr Litvinenko that had supposedly taken place earlier in the day on 17 October. Paragraph 127 of this statement read as follows:134
140"We, that is Mr Litvinenko, Mr Kovtun and I, had a meeting at 18.00 with RISC on 17 October 2007 [sic]. After the meeting at RISC, when we were walking back to the hotel, Mr Litvinenko was walking next to Mr Kovtun some distance ahead of me. I was speaking on my mobile phone. Whilst we were walking I could not hear what Mr Litvinenko was saying to Mr Kovtun. However, later that day Mr Kovtun told me that Mr Litvinenko resumed his complaint that Mr Berezovsky was not treating him fairly and that he simply could not survive on the money that Mr Berezovsky was paying to him. He said that he knew information regarding Mr Berezovsky that was worth a great deal of money. He said that he needed to find someone
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
substantial and trustworthy who could sell this information without the source of the information coming back to himself."
¶6.148 I have previously referred to these two accounts in chapter 4 of Part 5 above. I have
set them out here again in order to demonstrate the very significant discrepancies that exist between the accounts that have been given by Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun over the years, ending in the statement that Mr Kovtun provided to the Inquiry in June 2015. Clearly, had Mr Kovtun (or, for that matter, Mr Lugovoy) given oral evidence to the Inquiry, these discrepancies would have been addressed. Equally clearly, in the absence of any explanation from either of the men, I am not in a position to place any weight on these parts of their accounts. Arguably, the matter goes further than that. The differences between the accounts are so marked that I might be driven to conclude that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun have been deliberately attempting to mislead those attempting to discover the truth about these events, including myself. I shall return to this matter in due course.
¶6.149 I add in passing that the freedom with which Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun have
previously provided these detailed accounts, both to the press and in evidence in UK court proceedings, stands in stark contrast to what I was told was the legal prohibition on Mr Kovtun giving evidence about the same matters to this Inquiry.135
¶18 October: return to Moscow 6.150 I heard evidence from Ms Rondoni that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun checked out of the
Parkes Hotel at about 10.00am the following morning, Wednesday 18 October 2006. Mr Lugovoy paid the bill for both rooms. They told her that they were going to Gatwick and she saw the porter call a taxi for them.136
¶6.151 Later that day, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun flew back to Moscow from Gatwick aboard
141Transaero flight UN444.137 The bus on which they travelled from the terminal to the aeroplane was tested and no radiation was detected.138 The aircraft used for the flight that day was registration number EI-DNM. As I have already described, that aircraft was tested by UK authorities and was found to contain secondary contamination in the area of the seats on which Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun sat on 18 October.139
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006