Chapter 8: Events in London 31 October – 3 November
Chapter 8: Events in London 31 October – 3 November
¶6.226 One fact about Mr Lugovoy that emerges with some clarity from the totality of the
evidence is that he was a keen supporter of the CSKA Moscow football team. As I have mentioned above, when Mr Lugovoy met up with Mr Litvinenko for the first time in London in October 2004, he was in London to watch a match between Chelsea and CSKA (see above at paragraph 4.149). Mr Quirke gave evidence that during his meeting with Mr Lugovoy on 17 October 2006, Mr Lugovoy received a text alert about a goal that had been scored in a match that was taking place between CSKA and Arsenal.203
¶6.227 It is not, therefore, surprising that Mr Lugovoy should have come to London to watch
¶CSKA play Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday 1 November 2006.
¶6.228 Nor did Mr Lugovoy come alone. The evidence shows that, on this occasion, he brought
a group of people with him from Moscow. The core of the group was Mr Lugovoy's family – himself, his wife Svetlana, his two daughters Galina and Tatiana, who were 19 and 20 respectively, and his eight year old son Igor. Also in the group were Tatiana's boyfriend, Maxim Begak, and a business partner of Mr Lugovoy named Mr Sokolenko.
¶6.229 The group flew from Moscow to London on Tuesday 31 October 2006. Tatiana and
Maxim caught an early morning flight from Moscow; the rest of the group caught an afternoon flight. Whilst in London the group (with the exception of Mr Begak) stayed at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair. They all flew home together on Friday 3 November.
¶6.230 The evidence was that this was a long planned trip. The flight bookings had been
made on 12 October 2006.204 The hotel bookings had been made two days earlier, on 10 October 2006.205 DI Mascall referred to evidence that Mr Lugovoy had made arrangements to obtain tickets for the football match from Mr Shuppe, Mr Berezovsky's son in law, in September 2006.206
¶6.231 Putting these details into context, it will be seen that this family trip to watch a football
match had been arranged some time before Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun made their first trip to see Mr Litvinenko on 16 October 2006. The question that I will have to consider is whether the later visit to London remained simply a recreational trip or whether, perhaps as a result of intervening events, it subsequently came to serve a different, additional, purpose.
¶Arrival of Andrey Lugovoy and his party 6.232 As I have said, the first of the Lugovoy party to arrive in London on Tuesday 31 October
1562006 were Tatiana Lugovoya and her boyfriend Maxim Begak. They flew into Heathrow on BA flight 881, which landed that morning at 7.11am.207 The registration number of the aircraft that made the flight that day was G-EUUG. DI Mascall explained that
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
that particular plane was never tested because it was not believed to be at risk of contamination.208
¶6.233 The rest of the party (that is, Andrey, Svetlana, Galina and Igor Lugovoy and
Mr Sokolenko) flew from Moscow later in the day. They took BA flight 873, which landed at Heathrow at 6.35 in the evening. All five of them sat in seats in row 23 of the aircraft. The registration number of the aircraft was G-BNWB.209
¶6.234 G-BNWB was tested for contamination, and readings indicating secondary
contamination were taken in the area of row 23. The highest readings were taken on seat 23D, which was the seat that had been occupied on this flight by Mr Lugovoy.
¶6.235 Later that evening Mr Lugovoy and his party checked into their rooms at the Millennium
Hotel. The hotel records indicate that there was some confusion over the allocation of rooms, and this appears to have been caused at least in part by Tatiana Lugovoya arriving and checking in ahead of the main group. DI Mascall gave evidence about the detail of the process,210 but I do not propose to rehearse it here. The final position reached was that Andrey, Svetlana and Igor Lugovoy were allocated room 441, Tatiana and Galina Lugovoya were allocated room 101 and Mr Sokolenko was allocated room 382. Mr Begak had checked into a different hotel earlier in the day.211
¶6.236 The telephone schedule indicates that Mr Lugovoy made a telephone call to
Mr Litvinenko lasting six minutes shortly after 9.00 that evening.212 There had been no previous telephone communication between them during the day. It is of some potential significance that the evidence shows Mr Lugovoy initiating contact with Mr Litvinenko, and not the other way around.
¶Arrival of Dmitri Kovtun 6.237 Dmitri Kovtun flew into London on a Germanwings flight early on the morning of
¶Wednesday 1 November 2006.
¶6.238 I have already referred to Marina Wall's evidence that Mr Kovtun booked his onward
flight to London on the internet on Sunday 29 October, the day after he had arrived in Hamburg. She also said that Mr Kovtun had used her boyfriend's credit card to pay for the ticket. Enquiries made by the German police confirmed Ms Wall's memory of events. They confirmed that the booking had been made on 29 October in the name of Radoslaw Michal.213
¶6.239 As I have also mentioned above, Mr Kovtun's return flight from London to Moscow
157had in fact been booked two days previously, on 27 October. Documentary evidence demonstrates that on that day a booking was made for Mr Kovtun to fly to Moscow on flight BA874 on 3 November, the flight on which the rest of Mr Lugovoy's party were already booked. The booking was made with the same travel agent as had previously booked the travel for Mr Lugovoy's party.214
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶6.240 Mr Kovtun's flight was scheduled to land at 7.25 that morning. There was no evidence
of its actual arrival time, but it must have landed on time, or perhaps even slightly early, because Mr Kovtun can be seen on CCTV footage arriving at the Millennium Hotel shortly after 8.30am.215 The aircraft on which he had travelled was subsequently tested by the German authorities, but no contamination was found.216
¶6.241 Mr Kovtun did not have his own room at the Millennium Hotel. CCTV footage from
within the hotel showed that for the two days and two nights that he was in London on this occasion, he shared room 382 with Mr Sokolenko.217
¶What was Mr Kovtun doing in London? 6.242 Before continuing with the narrative of events on 1 November, it is perhaps worth
pausing to consider a question to which I have already alluded more than once. What was the purpose of Mr Kovtun's flight that morning? What was he doing in London?
¶6.243 The first point to address is whether Mr Kovtun's trip had been planned with any
particular purpose at all. In his 2 June 2015 witness statement, Mr Kovtun denied this. He said, in summary, that he had only come to London "by chance", and that he only decided to make the trip after he had resolved his business at the Aliens' Registration Office with unexpected speed. The relevant section of the witness statement stated as follows:218
"I have declared repeatedly and publicly that I arrived in London by chance on 1 November because I was anticipating serious complications in Hamburg while arranging to have a 'residence permit' inserted into my new passport. That had to be done because the old passport expired on 11.04.06. For reasons which had nothing to do with me I did not receive the new passport until 17.08.2006, and I arrived in Germany on 28.10.2006. This meant that I had involuntarily infringed a whole series of provisions of the 'residence permit' law of Germany. Firstly, the periods laid down for crossing the border had been infringed. In connection with that I anticipated complications with having a 'residence permit' inserted into the new passport and was prepared for the fact that I might have to stay in Germany for 2-3 weeks and deal with residence and insurance matters, registration of the company, or employment. It was entirely possible that I would have to engage a lawyer. In any case I had not contemplated a trip to London until there was a happy turn of events for me when the employee of the foreign affairs department simply overlooked the abovementioned facts."
¶I have underlined what appear to me to be the most important parts of this passage.
¶6.244 As I have previously remarked in relation to other sections of Mr Kovtun's statement,
158the fact that Mr Kovtun decided not to give oral evidence to the Inquiry means that it was not possible to test him on difficulties and apparent inconsistencies in his account. However, even without the benefit of having heard Mr Kovtun's oral explanation, it seems tolerably clear that this section of his statement is false and was intended to mislead me. The suggestion made by Mr Kovtun is that he only decided to travel to London after his appointment at the Aliens' Registration Office on Monday 30 October – indeed, he states that he had not even "contemplated" making the trip
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
until then. That is plainly inconsistent with the fact that a return ticket from London to Moscow had been purchased for him on 27 October and that Mr Kovtun himself had purchased a ticket from Hamburg to London on Sunday 29 October – the day before his appointment at the Aliens' Registration Office. I simply do not accept that these arrangements would have been made unless a decision had already been taken that Mr Kovtun would travel to London on 1 November.
¶6.245 If that is right, there must have been a reason for the decision that Mr Kovtun made
to make a special trip to London. The statement also raises a further question – why is Mr Kovtun now attempting to confuse the issue?
¶6.246 There are some suggestions in Marina Wall's interview transcripts that Mr Kovtun was
intending to go to London in order to watch the Arsenal v CSKA Moscow match. For example, she said at one point; "Dmitry wanted to go to London to a football match. He told me that he wanted to meet up with two friends in London and they then wanted to go to the football match."219 Jolly 32/60 It is clear, however, that this was not the reason for Mr Kovtun's trip to London. Apart from the fact that Mr Kovtun makes no mention of any plan for him to attend the match in his recent statement, there is evidence, to which we shall come, that there were not enough tickets for Mr Kovtun to go to the match, and it is clear on the evidence that he did not in fact go to the match.
¶6.247 In the Declaration that he made at the British Embassy in Moscow on 23 November
2006, Mr Kovtun gave a different explanation for his trip to London. At that time, he did not say that he had made the trip simply "by chance", or that he had come to watch the football match. Rather, he said:220
"The second time that I came to London was on 1 November 2006. I came from Hamburg, having agreed my visit with Continental Petroleum Ltd, with the aim of passing several documents to one of the members of the Board, Dr Shadrin. Mr Lugovoy was present at the talks, with Dr Shadrin as my main partner in the oil field development projects."
¶6.248 I will turn to Dr Shadrin's evidence about his contact with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun
shortly. In summary, however, he contradicted the idea that there was any pressing business justification for Mr Kovtun's journey to London. He could not recall any important business being discussed when Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun came to his offices on 1 November – most of the time was spent talking about football. And in any event, he made regular visits to Moscow at that time and they could have seen him there if they wished. They did give him some documents, but these were standard 'Know Your Client' compliance documents. There was no need to deliver them by hand and certainly no need for Mr Kovtun to make a special trip to London to do so.
¶6.249 Mr Kovtun's 2 June 2015 witness statement does disclose one further possible motive
159for his trip to London, namely a desire to contact C2 and ask him if he would like to move to Moscow and become the chef at a new restaurant that Mr Kovtun and Mr Lugovoy were planning to open. This is another matter to which I shall shortly come. Mr Kovtun has not of course said, either in his June 2015 statement or anywhere else, that a desire to speak to C2 was what prompted him to come to London. As we shall see, having arrived in London Mr Kovtun made very limited attempts to meet C2, and appears never to have put his proposal to him at all.
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶6.250 In conclusion, the question that I posed at the outset of this section remains unanswered.
There must have been a reason for the decision, which the evidence shows to have been taken at short notice, for Mr Kovtun to fly to London and join Mr Lugovoy's party there. The different (and conflicting) explanations that Mr Kovtun has given over time are unconvincing. What was the reason?
¶Movements of Kovtun and Lugovoy – morning of 1 November 6.251 DI Mascall gave evidence about the movements and activities of Mr Lugovoy,
Mr Kovtun and the rest of the group from the morning until the late afternoon of 1 November 2006. In outline:
a. There is CCTV evidence of the whole group (that is, the five members of the Lugovoy family, Mr Sokolenko and Mr Kovtun) leaving the hotel together at about 10.08am221
b. Witness and documentary evidence demonstrates that at 10.26am Mr Lugovoy's credit card was used to pay for tickets for a 'Big Bus' sightseeing tour of London, commencing at Marble Arch. Four adult and one child's tickets were purchased. It appears that Mrs Lugovoya with her three children and Mr Sokolenko went on the tour.222 As we shall see, they returned to the hotel later that afternoon
c. Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun appear to have walked on from Marble Arch together. The telephone schedule indicates that at 10.42am Mr Lugovoy made a short telephone call to Mr Berezovsky's offices, which were nearby.223 It is possible that he popped in to Mr Berezovsky's offices at this stage to collect the tickets for the football match. Another possibility is that the meeting between Mr Lugovoy and Mr Berezovsky at which Ms Tregubova's security was discussed took place at about this time
d. The Visitors' Book at 58 Grosvenor Street, where CPL had its offices, records that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun arrived there at some point in the late morning of 1 November 2006 (the entries for Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun are dated 31 October, but the sequence of the timings on the page suggest that these entries were in fact made on 1 November).224 There is other evidence, to which I shall return, that they were there that morning. DI Mascall stated that cell site evidence suggested (although he was careful not to put it higher than that) that the two men arrived at the CPL offices at about noon and stayed there for a number of hours225
160e. The telephone schedule indicates that two potentially significant calls were made from Mr Lugovoy's mobile phone shortly after 11.30am.226 At 11.33am, a call lasting 1 minute and 14 seconds was made to C2. A few minutes later, at 11.41am, a call lasting nearly five minutes was made to Mr Litvinenko. As I have indicated above, DI Mascall stated that the cell site evidence tended to suggest that the calls were made before Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun arrived at the CPL offices
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
f. CCTV footage at the Millennium Hotel shows Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun arriving back there at about 3.30pm.227 Similar footage shows Mr Litvinenko arriving at the hotel at about 4.00pm.228 There is evidence, to which I shall of course return, about a meeting that then took place in the Pine Bar of the hotel between Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun and Mr Litvinenko. CCTV footage shows Mr Sokolenko, Mrs Lugovoya and her children arriving back at the hotel at about 4.30pm,229 which was about the time that the meeting in the Pine Bar was breaking up
¶6.252 There is a degree of overlap between Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun's visit to the CPL
offices and the two phone calls made shortly after 11.30am. I propose to address the two issues together.
¶6.253 It is quite clear that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun did attend the CPL offices at some
point on the morning of 1 November. I have already referred to the evidence of the Visitors' Book and the cell siting. The Visitors' Book does not record a time of arrival. Mrs Davison's evidence was that the two men arrived between 11.00am and noon,230 which is broadly consistent with DI Mascall's understanding of the cell site evidence.
¶6.254 I heard evidence from three individuals who were present at the CPL offices that day
and who recalled meeting Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun. They were Dr Shadrin himself,231 his assistant Mrs Davison232 and Mr Gorokov,233 a colleague of his. Mr Gorokov was confused over dates, but it is clear that the events he was describing took place on 1 November, since he remembered that it had been the day of the match between Arsenal and CSKA Moscow.
¶6.255 The strong impression that I gained from the evidence of these three witnesses was
that there was little real business, and certainly no urgent or important business, done that day.
¶6.256 Mr Gorokov and Mrs Davison were both, as it happened, football fans who were due
to go to the match that evening. They both recalled discussing the prospects for the match with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun. Mr Gorokov recalled speaking to Mr Lugovoy for 15 or 20 minutes about football, including looking at his ticket and telling him that he had a good seat. He was asked directly whether they had discussed any business at all – he said, "No, this time it was not business; it was only saying this sporting matters."234 Gorokov 13/151-152
¶6.257 Dr Shadrin recalled that there had been a meeting on that day and that he had had
some general discussions with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun about possible new projects, but his main memory appears to have been of Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun discussing the football with Mrs Davison and Mr Gorokov. He said:
161"… frankly I don't remember that we actually discussed anything. Basically I was trying to explain Lugovoy the steps that he needs to undertake to develop the
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
projects and the procedure that he has to adhere, but I don't know whether he actually listened to me very carefully."235 Shadrin 14/192
¶When asked whether he remembered Mr Kovtun being present, Dr Shadrin said:
"I don't remember, actually. Probably he was. But effectively they were talking more about football, and openly I just quitted the meeting, because I think that was probably early – it was midday/early afternoon, because obviously everyone was going to… attend the match."236 Shadrin 14/192
When asked whether he recalled the meeting being disturbed by Mr Lugovoy receiving a call from anyone else, Dr Shadrin replied:
"No. Actually, … I was trying to be focused on the matters that I would like… them to understand, and basically explain them the procedures that they need to comply with, but the major part of the conversation was just going into jokes and discussion about football."237 Shadrin 14/193
¶6.258 Dr Shadrin did recall that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun delivered some 'Know Your
Client' documents, but his memory is that they did so the next day, when he was engaged in another meeting.238
¶6.259 I have addressed the evidence relating to the meeting with Dr Shadrin in some detail
because it is relevant to the question of why Mr Kovtun travelled to London. As I have set out, one of the explanations that Mr Kovtun has given over time is that he needed to come to London to do business with Dr Shadrin.
¶6.260 I regard that assertion as being untenable in the light of the evidence of Dr Shadrin
and his colleagues. There is nothing to suggest that anything was discussed or undertaken at the CPL offices that day that required Mr Kovtun's presence at all, far less his urgent travel from Hamburg. It is also important to recall in this context that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun did not need to travel to London at all to meet Dr Shadrin. As he made clear in his oral evidence, and repeated in his statement dated 24 June 2015, "during 2006 I was a regular visitor to Russia and could quite easily have met them there".239
¶6.261 I turn now to the telephone call made on Mr Lugovoy's phone to C2 at 11.33 on the morning of 1 November.
¶6.262 It is common ground that this call was in fact made by Mr Kovtun – in his recent
statement he said that he did so because his own phone was out of credit.240 It is also common ground that Mr Kovtun and C2 had a discussion about meeting up. Mr Kovtun said in his recent statement that this conversation in fact took place shortly after his first call when C2 rang him back. That assertion is not supported by the telephone schedule, but I do not regard this as a point of any great importance.
¶6.263 Beyond these facts, there are some important discrepancies in the evidence that I have received.
162¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
¶6.264 C2 himself gave oral evidence to the Inquiry.241 He said that he had worked for some
years at Il Porto in the 1990s, initially as a kitchen porter and latterly as a chef de partie (in a statement prepared after he had given evidence, C2 clarified that in his last two years at Il Porto he worked as head chef when the other chef was absent).242 In 2000 he had left Germany, returning to his home country of Albania. He had subsequently travelled to the UK and settled in London. He said that he had known Mr Kovtun at Il Porto, but that they had not been friends. They had not shared a language, and had therefore been unable to talk to each other.
¶6.265 C2 recalled receiving a call from Mr Kovtun on 1 November 2006. He said that at that
time he had not spoken to Mr Kovtun or had any other contact with him for six years. C2 said that when Mr Kovtun called he was in Stratford in east London. He was in a coffee shop helping with some menus. He said that the call had been brief. After Mr Kovtun had introduced himself, he had said (in English) that he was in London and had suggested meeting up. C2 had said that he was busy, but that he would call Mr Kovtun back and meet him when he had time. C2 said that that was the end of the call. He said that it took one minute.
¶6.266 C2 said that he had called Mr Kovtun back. He struggled to remember how long after
Mr Kovtun's call this had been. He initially thought that it may have been two or three weeks later, but he accepted that it might have been (as the telephone schedule suggests) as soon as the next day. He said that when he did call he suggested to Mr Kovtun that they meet up. Mr Kovtun had said that he was busy but that he would see him later. C2 expected him to call back, but he never did.
¶6.267 Mr Kovtun's explanation for and account of this episode were strikingly different.
¶6.268 In his recent statement, Mr Kovtun stated that the reason he had obtained C2's
phone number and then contacted him in London was that he wanted to ask him to come to Moscow and work as the chef in a restaurant that he and Mr Lugovoy were planning to open. He described C2 as his "friend", and said that he was a specialist in Mediterranean cuisine.243 As to his communications with C2 in London, he said as follows:244
"at 16.00-17.00 on 1 November 2006 I had a meeting planned with [C2] … who is my friend and former colleague in the restaurant business in Hamburg to whom Lugovoy and I wished to offer a job in a restaurant in Moscow. However, in the presence of my acquaintance Aleksandr Shadrin, in a telephone conversation [C2] suggested that I come to him for a meeting in a district of London far from the centre, the name of which I cannot remember. In answer to the question I put to Shadrin as to how to get to the district named by [C2] and how long it would take to get there, he replied that at that time of day in London in would take 3-4 hours to get there because of traffic congestion. Since I did not want to spend such a long time reaching the meeting place after having flown in from Hamburg, I agreed with [C2] that we would postpone our meeting until the following day, at a more convenient time for both of us. [C2] agreed to ring on 2 November 2006 and discuss the possibility of meeting and the place at which to meet."
¶C2 24/14-39 242
¶C2 32/43-44
163¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶6.269 Mr Kovtun went on to say that he had not called C2 on 2 November because he did not
know when he would be free. He therefore decided that he would postpone meeting C2 until his next visit to London. He added that he and Mr Lugovoy had subsequently opened a restaurant in Moscow.
¶6.270 Mr Kovtun's account raises many questions. As with other similar instances, the fact
that Mr Kovtun did not give oral evidence has deprived the Inquiry of the opportunity to explore such questions with him. On this occasion, however, Mr Kovtun's account is so lacking in credibility, and has been so compromised by the evidence of other witnesses, that I have concluded that it must be rejected without having heard Mr Kovtun's response. I have taken this view for two broad reasons.
¶6.271 First, the reasons that Mr Kovtun has given for seeking to contact C2 have an intrinsic
lack of credibility. It defies common sense to think that anyone planning to set up a restaurant in Moscow would seek to recruit as its chef an Albanian living in the UK, in particular one who did not speak Russian. And if, contrary to this, Mr Kovtun really did think that C2 was the only man for the job, why did he give up so easily, so that he never in fact put the proposal to him? Even if it was not possible to meet up in person in London, Mr Kovtun could have spoken to C2 by phone.
¶6.272 Second, key elements of Mr Kovtun's account have been refuted by C2 and by
Dr Shadrin, whose evidence on these matters I accept. C2 was not Mr Kovtun's "friend". C2 said that they had never been friendly whilst they were working together – for the understandable reason that they did not speak a common language – and that by November 2006 they had not been in any form of contact for six years.245 C2 also denied that there had ever been any planned meeting between him and Mr Kovtun at 4.00-5.00pm on 1 November 2006.246 He further denied that when Mr Kovtun called him on 1 November he had suggested that Mr Kovtun come to meet him at a location that was three or four hours travel away from central London. He said that he did not suggest meeting Mr Kovtun at all, he simply told him that he was busy. And even if he had asked Mr Kovtun to come and meet him where he was that day – in Stratford – C2 said, and he was plainly correct in this, that Stratford is only a 45 minute journey from central London.247 Dr Shadrin also rejected his claimed involvement in this part of Mr Kovtun's conversation with C2. He said:248
"I have been asked if I can recall a telephone conversation that Mr Kovtun had whilst he was in company with Mr Lugovoy at the CPL offices on 1st November 2006. In particular I have been asked whether Mr Kovtun sought my advice about directions to a district of London and the time it might take him to travel to that location for another meeting including my mentioning that it would take him 3-4 hours to get there because of traffic congestion at that time of the day. I have no specific recollections with regard to this issue. I couldn't conceive that it would take that long to drive anywhere in London however I do know from personal experience that that could be the case in Moscow."
¶6.273 I therefore conclude that the elaborate explanation that Mr Kovtun has given for the
call that he made to C2 at 11.33am on 1 November amounts to a tissue of lies. As I indicated above, this conclusion will be of importance when I come to determine whether D3's account of his conversation with Mr Kovtun in Hamburg should be
¶C2 24/24; 24/ 27; C2 32/45 246
¶C2 32/42 247
¶C2 32/43
164¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
believed. Something else that will be of relevance to this issue is the action that Mr Lugovoy took only a few minutes after Mr Kovtun had spoken to C2 and discovered that he was too busy to meet that day: he telephoned Mr Litvinenko. I will return to that telephone call shortly.
¶Movements of Mr Litvinenko 6.274 DI Mascall gave evidence about Mr Litvinenko's movements on 1 November 2006.249
By drawing on what Mr Litvinenko had said to the police in interview and the statements given by those he had met, as well as CCTV and telephone evidence, it was possible to identify very precisely what he did and where he went that day prior to the meeting at the Pine Bar:
a. Mr Litvinenko spent the morning of 1 November at home. During the morning he made arrangements by telephone for meetings later in the day. I will return to those calls in due course
b. Mr Litvinenko left home at about 12.30pm. He travelled into central London by bus and tube, arriving at Oxford Circus shortly after 1.30pm. The bus on which he travelled was subsequently identified and tested for radiation. No radiation was detected250
c. From Oxford Circus, Mr Litvinenko walked to Mr Attew's office, where he had a meeting with Mr Attew at about 2.00pm which lasted about half an hour. Mr Litvinenko did not eat or drink anything during the meeting251
d. On leaving Mr Attew's office, Mr Litvinenko walked towards Piccadilly, where he was due to meet Mr Scaramella at 3.00pm. He stopped en route at the Russian Market near St James' Piccadilly and spoke for about 15 minutes with his friend Mr Tabunov252
e. Mr Litvinenko met Mr Scaramella at Piccadilly Circus at 3.00pm. They walked together to the itsu restaurant on Piccadilly, where they stayed for about half an hour253
f. Mr Litvinenko left itsu at 3.40pm and walked north towards the Millennium Hotel. He arrived at the Millennium Hotel just before 4.00pm254
¶Arrangements for meeting 6.275 There was an issue on the evidence as to how, and in particular on whose initiative, the meeting at the Pine Bar was arranged.
¶6.276 It has been a theme of the accounts given by Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun over time
165that it was Mr Litvinenko who wanted to meet them on that day. Thus, for example, in the Declaration that he made at the British Embassy in Moscow on 23 November
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
2006, Mr Lugovoy stated, "On 1 November 2006, Mr Litvinenko called me and offered to meet".255 When he subsequently gave an account of that day to Bruce Burgess at the time of the polygraph test, Mr Lugovoy made the same point in slightly more colourful terms:
"On the day of the football match I received a call from Litvinenko who insistently asked me to meet him. I said I did not have time, let's meet say tomorrow. He said No, no, we must meet today."256 INQ017779 (page 6)
¶6.277 Mr Kovtun gave a very similar account in his statement of 2 June 2015:257
"I remember that on that day, with the sense of urgency typical of him, Litvinenko proactively telephoned Lugovoy 5-8 times on a mobile telephone saying that he was not far away from the hotel and asking if he could come to see us. Lugovoy's reply to him was that there would be hardly any time to talk because he was taking his family to a football match. In other words, it was up to Litvinenko whether he came or not. During the telephone conversations Lugovoy and I were in Shadrin's office."
¶6.278 Mr Litvinenko gave a very different account when he was interviewed by Detective
¶Inspector (DI) Hyatt in his hospital bed.
¶6.279 Mr Litvinenko said that the two men had planned to meet on 2 November, but that on
1 November Mr Lugovoy, "called me in the morning and said he had already arrived and he would like to meet for a short time on the 1st". He said that they had then arranged to meet at about 5.00 that afternoon at the Millennium Hotel, but that later in the day they had spoken again and the meeting had been brought forward – on that occasion Mr Lugovoy had said, "come quicker, I am waiting for you".258
¶6.280 The telephone schedule has in fact made it possible to resolve the differences between
these rival accounts.259 Put shortly, the schedule shows that the differences between the accounts fall to be resolved in favour of Mr Litvinenko's version of events. The following points emerge:
a. The very first call between Mr Lugovoy and Mr Litvinenko following Mr Lugovoy's arrival in London was made by Mr Lugovoy shortly after 9.00 on the evening of 31 October. The call lasted some six minutes
b. The next communication between the two was another call made by Mr Lugovoy to Mr Litvinenko, this time at 11.41am the next morning. This was the call made a few minutes after Mr Kovtun's call to C2. It is consistent with Mr Litvinenko's recollection of Mr Lugovoy calling him on the morning of 1 November
166c. The fact that the first two calls between the two men during this trip were made from Mr Lugovoy to Mr Litvinenko is strongly inconsistent with the accounts given by Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
d. The next two relevant entries on the schedule show calls made by Mr Litvinenko to Mr Lugovoy, one at 2.32pm and one at 2.55pm. These calls may well have been made whilst Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were at CPL that day, and to that extent they corroborate Mr Kovtun's account. That said, there were only two calls and they were both very short – the first lasted 8 seconds and the second 40 seconds. Moreover, there is good evidence that by that stage the meeting later in the day had already been arranged, at Mr Lugovoy's behest
e. A further call, lasting 39 seconds, was made by Mr Lugovoy to Mr Litvinenko at 3.38pm. That time was a few minutes after Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun had returned to the Millennium Hotel and a minute or so before Mr Litvinenko left itsu to walk up to the hotel. This would appear to corroborate Mr Litvinenko's memory that Mr Lugovoy rang him during the afternoon to bring the time of the meeting forward – the occasion when he told Mr Litvinenko, "come quicker, I am waiting for you". (See paragraph 6.279 above)
¶6.281 In summary, it is Mr Litvinenko's account that is consistent with the objective evidence
of the telephone schedule. The meeting at the Pine Bar on the afternoon of 1 November was instigated by Mr Lugovoy, not Mr Litvinenko.
¶6.282 Two questions arise that are worthy of further consideration. First, why have Mr Lugovoy
and Mr Kovtun gone to such lengths to attempt to conceal what might be thought to be a very mundane piece of information, namely that the meeting was prompted by Mr Lugovoy and not Mr Litvinenko? And second, is there any significance in the fact that Mr Lugovoy made the call to Mr Litvinenko suggesting that they meet up that afternoon only a few minutes after Mr Kovtun had spoken to C2 and discovered that he was unavailable?
¶Scaramella/Limarev 6.283 I have already mentioned that, immediately before he went to the Millennium Hotel on
the afternoon of 1 November, Mr Litvinenko met up with Mario Scaramella. They met by arrangement at Piccadilly Circus and then sat in itsu on Piccadilly for half an hour before Mr Litvinenko received the "come quicker" call from Mr Lugovoy. I heard oral evidence about the meeting and the events that had led to it from Mr Scaramella.260
¶6.284 Mr Scaramella's evidence was that he arranged to see Mr Litvinenko on 1 November
167because he wanted to pass on to him information that he had received about a possible threat to Mr Litvinenko's safety from individuals linked to the Russian security services. He had been provided with this information by Evgheniy Limarev, from whom I also heard evidence. I will consider the detail of the information that Mr Scaramella received from Mr Limarev and its possible veracity in Part 9 of this Report; but in a nutshell Mr Scaramella said that he had had a series of communications with Mr Limarev during October about what he understood to be an increasing threat to a group of individuals on a Russian 'hitlist'. The 'targets' included Anna Politkovskaya, Mr Scaramella himself, Mr Guzzanti, Mr Berezovsky, Mr Zakayev and Mr Litvinenko. Mr Scaramella said that Mr Limarev had spoken to him of the possibility that radioactive poisons might be used against these targets.261
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶6.285 Mr Scaramella had contacted Mr Litvinenko by email in the previous week, on
25 October, saying that he would be in London the following week and that he hoped it would be possible to meet.262 The purpose of the planned trip was to attend the annual conference of the International Maritime Organization. As I understood his evidence, Mr Scaramella was in two minds whether to attend the conference, and his final decision to come to London owed as much to his wish to meet Mr Litvinenko as it did to his desire to attend the conference.263
¶6.286 The evidence was that Mr Scaramella flew to London on 31 October, arriving late in
the evening. He stayed that night at the Thistle Hotel in Victoria.264 He telephoned Mr Litvinenko the next morning at 10.00265 and they arranged to meet at 3.00pm "as usual" – the code that the two men used for a meeting at Piccadilly Circus.266
¶6.287 Mr Scaramella had brought with him from Italy several documents to give to
Mr Litvinenko – an excerpt from a book, an article that Mr Guzzanti had written and a recent email from Mr Limarev about the threat from the Russian security services. On his way to meet Mr Litvinenko on 1 November, Mr Scaramella visited an internet café in Chinatown and looked at his emails. Another 'security' email from Mr Limarev had arrived. He printed it off and added it to the documents for Mr Litvinenko.267
¶6.288 Mr Scaramella said that he met Mr Litvinenko at Piccadilly Circus according to plan.
He said that he had already eaten, but that as Mr Litvinenko had not had lunch they walked together to itsu on Piccadilly.268 CCTV evidence showed them arriving at itsu at 3.10pm.269
¶6.289 When he was first interviewed Mr Scaramella had provided the police with a plan
168showing where he and Mr Litvinenko sat at itsu that day, and he confirmed the accuracy of the plan to me when he gave evidence. He said that they had sat facing each other across a table. The plan is reproduced below.
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
¶Mr Scaramella's plan of where he and Mr Litvinenko sat at itsu270
¶Plan showing contamination found at itsu271
169¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶6.290 Mr Scaramella said that he had shown Mr Litvinenko the emails from Mr Limarev,
but that Mr Litvinenko had not taken the warnings in the emails seriously. According to Mr Scaramella, Mr Litvinenko's reaction had been; "it doesn't matter, if it's from Evgeni, it means not credible… it's shit if it's from Evgeni".272
¶6.291 Mr Scaramella said that he and Mr Litvinenko had parted when they left itsu.
Mr Scaramella walked back to his conference. Mr Litvinenko, as we have seen, walked to the Millennium Hotel.
¶6.292 Following Mr Litvinenko's death, Mr Scaramella's room at the Thistle Hotel, the internet
café that he had used and the table at itsu where he had sat with Mr Litvinenko were all tested and found to be free from contamination.273 I have referred at paragraph 6.101 to the contamination that was found in itsu on the table adjacent to that at which Mr Litvinenko and Mr Scaramella sat on 1 November – it seems likely that that table was contaminated on 16 October when Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun and Mr Litvinenko sat there after the Erinys meeting. The papers that Mr Scaramella had passed to Mr Litvinenko were also tested. They were found to bear low levels of secondary contamination, but nothing like the levels that would have been expected had the pages been in contact with a primary source of polonium.274
¶The Pine Bar 6.293 Mr Lugovoy and his party were, as I have already said, staying at the Millennium Hotel
on Grosvenor Square. Next to the reception area on the ground floor of the Millennium Hotel is a bar called the Pine Bar. It was in the Pine Bar that Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun and Mr Litvinenko met during the afternoon of 1 November 2006. The forensic and other evidence strongly indicates that it was during this meeting that Mr Litvinenko drank green tea poisoned with polonium.
¶6.294 The CCTV footage taken by various cameras sited in the reception area of the
Millennium Hotel established the timings relating to the meeting in the Pine Bar that afternoon.
¶6.295 The footage showed Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun returning to the hotel at about
3.30pm.275 In the period of about half an hour before Mr Litvinenko arrived (during which Mr Lugovoy made his "come quicker" phone call), there is footage of both Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun going separately into the men's lavatories just off the reception area.276 There is then footage of Mr Litvinenko arriving in the reception area and speaking on his mobile phone, which is consistent with entries on the telephone schedule showing him making two short calls to Mr Lugovoy at 3.59pm, presumably saying that he had arrived.277
¶6.296 At the end of the meeting, CCTV footage shows the arrival back in the hotel of
170Mr Lugovoy's family, and Mr Lugovoy himself walking in the reception area, at shortly after 4.30pm.278 There was no CCTV footage of Mr Litvinenko leaving the hotel, but footage from a camera in a nearby street showed him walking away from the hotel at
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
4.39pm.279 The CCTV camera covering the approach to the lavatories off the reception area was permanently recording and the footage does not show Mr Litvinenko entering this area at any time.280
¶6.297 Mr Litvinenko was therefore in the Millennium Hotel for a little over half an hour on
¶1 November 2006. That was when the meeting in the Pine Bar took place.
¶6.298 There is no CCTV footage of the meeting because there were no CCTV cameras
in the Pine Bar in 2006. There is, though, other evidence. Mr Litvinenko told the police what happened during his interviews in hospital and both Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun have, as we shall see, given their own accounts. I also heard evidence from Mr Andrade, the head barman who served them that afternoon.281
¶6.299 Mr Andrade had a good memory of serving the three men that afternoon. He
was assisted by the bar bill, which the police had obtained as part of their initial investigation.282 He was sure that he had served the men – he explained that the bill bore the name of a different member of staff because he had been using someone else's log on card that day.
¶6.300 Mr Andrade recalled that Mr Lugovoy had initially approached him and asked for a
171cigar, and that he and two others had subsequently sat at a table in the Pine Bar, where Mr Andrade had served them. The bill recorded that there were three guests in the group and that they had sat at table 1; Mr Andrade was confident that these details were correct. A number of drinks were listed on the bill, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Mr Andrade said that the men had made a number of different orders during the time that they were in the bar. He said that he would not necessarily have entered the details into the computer at the time the orders were made. In fact, the bill was timed at 4.33pm, so it would appear that the details were only entered at about the time the group were leaving the bar. He said that the bill would have been signed by Mr Lugovoy.
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶Plan of the Pine Bar283
¶6.301 One of the items on the bill was "3 Tea". Mr Andrade recalled that this was in fact an
order for green tea with lemon and honey. He said that the tea had been made in one large pot by his colleague behind the bar, and that he brought the pot and the cups to the table. It was not his practice, he said, to pour tea for customers. He said that the teapots in use in the Pine Bar at the time were made of white porcelain.
¶6.302 It was apparent from Mr Andrade's evidence that at the time in question he was busy
172serving a number of customers. Understandably, he paid only limited attention to the group at Mr Lugovoy's table. He said that the men were "very well behaved and well dressed". He did not overhear anything that the men said, and did not remember anything unusual about the way they acted. In particular, he did not notice anything
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
unusual about the tea or the way that it had been drunk. He said, "it was as normal as any other table or any other time". He disassociated himself entirely from various sensational accounts that had been attributed to him in the press.
¶6.303 One oddity in the evidence is an entry in the telephone schedule indicating that
Mr Lugovoy made a telephone call to Mr Voronoff at 4.00pm – i.e. just the time that Mr Litvinenko was arriving at the Pine Bar – that lasted for nearly six minutes.284 Neither Mr Litvinenko nor Mr Lugovoy referred to this call in their accounts of the meeting. It is unexplained.
¶6.304 Mr Litvinenko described the meeting in the Pine Bar on a number of occasions during
the course of his interviews with DI Hyatt. The relevant sections of the transcripts of the interviews were read in the course of DI Mascall's evidence. In summary, Mr Litvinenko described arriving at the Millennium Hotel and Mr Lugovoy taking him to a table in the corner of the Pine Bar. His description of the position of the table is consistent with the position of table 1, where Mr Andrade said they had been sitting. Mr Litvinenko said that he had been sitting talking to Mr Lugovoy alone for some time before Mr Kovtun joined them. In an important passage of the interview transcript, which I have set out below, Mr Litvinenko described drinking some green tea that was already on the table. On Mr Litvinenko's account, this was before Mr Kovtun joined them. Mr Litvinenko's description of this part of the meeting was as follows:285
"There was nobody else there. He [Lugovoy] said that he was leaving for football match now so let's discuss things for 10-15 minutes and that's it. So. Next day we were due to go to Global Risk. Well… we discussed how we're going to go there and he said that he was looking for his interpreter… And what time we would go there, either at ten, or ten thirty. So… There were a few mugs on the table and there was also a tea pot, such a metal one, there was tea there. It was silver in colour, made of silver, not silver, the legs… expensive metal. It's a rich hotel. Straight away a waiter came up to us… I could not see him because he came up from the back. He asked 'Are you going to have anything?' I think Andrei asked, 'Would you like anything?' I said, 'I don't want anything', (INAUDIBLE) and he said, 'Okay well we're going to leave now anyway so there is still some tea left here if you want you can have some.' And then the waiter went away or I think Andre asked for a clean cup, and he bought it [sic]. He left and when there was a cup I poured some tea out of the tea pot, although there was only little left on the bottom and it made just half a cup. Maybe about 50 grams. I swallowed a several times but it was green tea with no sugar and it was already cold by the way. I didn't like it for some reason, well almost cold tea with no sugar and I didn't drink it anymore. Maybe in total I swallowed three or four times, I haven't even finished that cup."
¶6.305 Mr Litvinenko went on to describe Mr Kovtun (who he called 'Volodia') coming to sit at
the table and the conversation about the next day's planned meeting with Mr Quirke. He said that they were talking for about 20 minutes. He mentioned a 'tall Russian' coming to the table, which is probably a reference to Mr Sokolenko arriving back in the hotel with Mrs Lugovoya and the children. In describing the end of the meeting, Mr Litvinenko said:286
173"In the end [Lugovoy] looked at his watch, he said my wife is about to come. There in the hall Andrei's wife turned up, she was waving her hand and he said, that's
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
it, let's go. So, Volodia and I stayed, the two of us, and he stood up, approached his wife, Andrei, and then he brought his son,8 Goldfarb 26/28-35 Bukovsky 26/95-96 INQ018943 Horwell 33/61 years old. He is such a boy, eight years old, wearing a jacket, he said, 'This is Uncle Sasha, shake his hand.' We shook hands, and he went (INAUDIBLE). So, then we came out."
¶6.306 Mr Litvinenko's account gives rise to a number of observations.
¶6.307 Mr Litvinenko was plainly mistaken about the colour of the teapot. It is clear from
Mr Andrade's evidence that the tea was served in a white porcelain pot. There is nothing sinister about this. Given that Mr Litvinenko was undergoing lengthy interviews whilst seriously ill in hospital, it would have been surprising if he had not made a few mistakes. There is evidence that the teapots in the Palm Court at the Sheraton Hotel, where Mr Litvinenko had had tea with Mr Lugovoy the previous week, were silver.287 It seems likely that on this point of detail Mr Litvinenko confused his memory of the two occasions.
¶6.308 Of more significance, there are two points about the way that Mr Litvinenko described
Mr Lugovoy acting that would appear to be inconsistent with the theory that Mr Lugovoy poisoned Mr Litvinenko with polonium at this meeting. Mr Tam QC referred to both these points in the course of his opening address.288
¶6.309 First, in Mr Litvinenko's narrative Mr Lugovoy was diffident in the extreme about
whether or not Mr Litvinenko should drink the tea. One might have expected a poisoner to encourage his intended victim to take the concealed poison, but on Mr Litvinenko's account Mr Lugovoy was almost discouraging him from drinking the tea. There is no doubt that this is the account that Mr Litvinenko intended to give – after he had given the account that I have set out above, Detective Sergeant (DS) Hoar asked Mr Litvinenko "… how insistent was Andre that you have a drink, or was he indifferent, was he saying, 'Go on, go on have some', or didn't he care?". Mr Litvinenko's answer to this was:
"He said it like that, you know, 'If you would like something, order something for yourself, but we're going to be leaving soon. If, if you want some tea then there is some left here, you can have some of this."289 INQ016582 (pages 8-9)
¶6.310 Second, it is striking that, on Mr Litvinenko's account, Mr Lugovoy encouraged
Mr Litvinenko to shake hands with his eight year old son at the end of the meeting. Is it conceivable, one asks rhetorically, that Mr Lugovoy would have done that had he known that Mr Litvinenko, as the forensic evidence indicates, had just drunk tea poisoned with highly radioactive polonium?
¶6.311 I will return to consider both these points in due course.
¶6.312 As I have mentioned, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun have both given their own accounts of events in the Pine Bar on various occasions since November 2006.
¶6.313 In fact, one of Mr Lugovoy's earliest public comments about this meeting took the
174form of declining to say anything about it. When he gave his Declaration to the British Embassy in Moscow on 23 November 2006, Mr Lugovoy said of the Pine Bar meeting:290
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
"We met in the afternoon in the Millennium Mayfair Hotel. I do not feel it necessary to write about this meeting in detail, as the room where it took place was equipped with high quality video equipment, which doubtless recorded the meeting."
¶6.314 As DI Mascall observed, this was an odd thing for Mr Lugovoy to say.291 There were
no security cameras in the Pine Bar. And Mr Lugovoy, who was a security expert having spent his career first in the Federal Protection Service and then running his own security company, could reasonably be expected to have known that.
¶6.315 DI Mascall referred in the course of his evidence to a number of substantive accounts
that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun have given over the years.292 Their accounts are broadly consistent with that of Mr Litvinenko. For example, neither of them has ever suggested that there was anyone else present at the meeting. On the twin questions of whether they offered Mr Litvinenko a drink and whether he in fact drank anything during the meeting, Mr Lugovoy's position has generally been that he is sure that they did not offer Mr Litvinenko a drink, but unsure whether he drank anything. Mr Kovtun's position has been less consistent. For example, in his interview with Der Spiegel in early December 2006 – that is, only a few weeks after the incident – Mr Kovtun is recorded as having stated:293
"I can't remember that clearly today. He came into the bar 10 minutes after us, we'd already had some alcohol, and I paid more attention to my cigar."
That account is in marked contrast to the account contained in the statement that he provided to the Inquiry dated 2 June 2015. In the 8½ years since speaking to Der Spiegel, he appears to have developed a much fuller memory of events. The relevant section of the new statement reads as follows:294
"Litvinenko came to the bar of the 'Millennium' hotel and 'flopped down' next to me on a seat at our table. Litvinenko was in a highly excited state; he was coughing. 'Having flopped down' at our table, Litvinenko grabbed the teapot on the table and, without waiting for an invitation, poured himself some tea. He gulped down two cups of hot tea one after the other. Litvinenko then had a coughing fit, wiped his mouth with a napkin and started to talk. In the course of the conversation he coughed and constantly wiped his mouth with a napkin."
¶6.316 The fact that Mr Kovtun has given such a dramatically different account so many years after the event raises further serious questions about his credibility.
¶Contamination in the Millennium Hotel 6.317 DI Mascall gave evidence about the results of tests for contamination that were
175conducted at the Millennium Hotel.295 Traces of alpha radiation were found in a large number of places throughout the hotel. As at other scenes, many of the positive readings were almost certainly the result of cross contamination – that is, radiation spreading from original points of contamination as a result of the use of cleaning equipment and items being moved from one place to another.
¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶6.318 Several of the results, however, are worthy of particular attention.
¶6.319 Secondary contamination was found in room 441, the room shared by Mr Lugovoy
and his wife and young son. Very much higher readings were, however, found in room 382, which was shared by Mr Kovtun and Mr Sokolenko. The highest readings were found in the bathroom and the highest of those readings was found in a sediment trap below the plughole in that bathroom. The expert evidence of A1 was that these readings were only consistent with primary contamination.296 It therefore appeared that polonium in one form or another had been poured down the plughole. The comparison with the contamination found in room 107 at the Best Western Hotel is striking.
¶6.320 Very high readings, which in A1's view were also consistent with primary contamination, were additionally found in two places in the Pine Bar.
¶6.321 In the bar itself, primary contamination was found on the table which Mr Andrade
had described as table 1 (in fact, two tables pushed together) and also on one of the chairs at the next table. It is to be noted that there was a gap of several weeks after 1 November before the Pine Bar was sealed as a crime scene, and Mr Andrade's evidence was that the chairs in the bar, and also on occasions the tables, were sometimes moved around.297
¶A1 20/65-68
176¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
¶Plan showing contamination found in the Pine Bar298
177¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
¶6.322 The other place where primary contamination was found was on one of the Pine
Bar's white teapots. The teapot had been given the exhibit number NJH/1. A1 gave evidence that every teapot in the hotel had been tested, and that NJH/1 had been the only one that bore evidence of contamination. The readings were extremely high. The highest readings were taken on the inside of the spout, where the polonium appeared to have bonded with tannin deposits. A1 stated that the levels and position of the contamination found on the inside of the teapot indicated that, "at some stage polonium… has been poured out of the spout". She was sure of this. She said, "I think that's the only conclusion you can come to." 299
¶The teapot300
¶A1 20/70-75
178¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
¶6.323 A1 also drew attention to the readings taken in the gentlemen's lavatories situated
next to the reception area at the Millennium Hotel. It will be recalled that the evidence of the CCTV footage was that these lavatories had been used by both Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun shortly before the Pine Bar meeting, but not by Mr Litvinenko at any point. Testing showed raised readings on one cubicle door, a sink and a hand drier. A1 expressed the view that the contamination was secondary rather than primary, albeit that, relatively speaking, the secondary contamination was at "very, very high levels". She said that the readings could "most certainly" be consistent with secondary transfer by hand from the source of the primary contamination found in the Pine Bar.301
¶Mr Litvinenko after the Pine Bar 6.324 After leaving the Millennium Hotel, Mr Litvinenko walked the short distance to
Mr Berezovsky's offices in Down Street. In his hospital interview with the police, Mr Litvinenko said that he had rung Mr Berezovsky in advance and told him that he was coming – that would be consistent with a call from Mr Litvinenko to Mr Berezovsky that is shown on the telephone schedule timed at shortly before 4.00pm.302 It would seem that Mr Litvinenko wanted to show Mr Berezovsky some of the documents that Mr Scaramella had given him at itsu earlier that afternoon, which he thought were relevant to identifying the killers of Anna Politkovskaya.303
¶6.325 The witness statement that Mr Berezovsky gave to the police was largely consistent
with Mr Litvinenko's account. Mr Berezovsky stated that Mr Litvinenko had called him saying that he had papers to show him about Anna Politkovskaya's death, and that he had seen him using the photocopier in the offices that afternoon. Mr Berezovsky added that Mr Litvinenko had given him some of the pages that he had copied to read, but that he had not had time to read them – he was in meetings ahead of a trip to South Africa, and he also wanted to get to the match at the Emirates Stadium that
¶A1 20/75-77
179¶Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
evening.304 I also heard evidence from Vladimir Voronkov, who was Mr Berezovsky's office manager. He said that it was quite normal for Mr Litvinenko to pop into the building, and he recalled seeing him there, he said at about 4.00 on the afternoon of 1 November 2006.305
¶6.326 Mr Litvinenko was in telephone contact with Mr Zakayev at around this time.
Mr Zakayev had driven into central London and Mr Litvinenko was arranging to get a lift home with him. Mr Zakayev gave oral evidence to the Inquiry. He said that Mr Litvinenko had telephoned him earlier in the day and that later he had picked him up by arrangement near Mr Berezovsky's offices. He, too, recalled that Mr Litvinenko had been talking about the papers he had received from Mr Scaramella and their possible connection to the Politkovskaya case. His evidence was that he had another friend, named Yaragi Abdul, who was already in the front passenger seat of the car. He said that when Mr Litvinenko got in he sat in the middle of the rear seats and that as they drove he leaned forward to talk to them, leaning on the back of the front seats. According to Mr Zakayev the drive back to north London was uneventful and he dropped Mr Litvinenko off in Osier Crescent.306
¶6.327 Mr Abdul also gave oral evidence, which was consistent with that of Mr Zakayev.307
¶6.328 1 November was the anniversary of Mr and Mrs Litvinenko's arrival in this country.
I have described in Part 3 above the evidence that Mrs Litvinenko cooked a special meal that evening, that Mr Litvinenko subsequently fell ill, and of all that followed.
¶6.329 When Mr Zakayev's car was tested for radiation, secondary contamination was found predominantly on the rear passenger seat and on the backs of the two front seats.308
¶6.330 Mr Litvinenko's house in Osier Crescent was also tested. Unsurprisingly, given that
Mr Litvinenko had on any view ingested polonium, secondary contamination was found throughout the property. There are two points about the findings that are of particular interest. First, there was no primary contamination found anywhere in the house. Second, in the main the secondary contamination readings were low. A1 agreed that these readings reflected, "pretty chronic low level contamination throughout the house, consistent with secondary transfer by multiple individuals over time."309 A1 20/83 There was a single exception to this pattern. Very high readings were taken from the sleeve of the blue denim jacket that Mr Litvinenko had been wearing on 1 November.310 A1 stated that, in simple terms, the readings indicated that the sleeve had been in an area of primary contamination. She said: "Most certainly the cuff of that sleeve had actually been in contact with quite a considerable level of contamination, and from its position, et cetera, it would be transferred contamination".311
¶Lugovoy and Kovtun after the Pine Bar 6.331 DI Mascall gave evidence about the movements of Mr Lugovoy and his party during the remainder of their stay in London. This can be dealt with fairly shortly.
180¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
¶6.332 In the early evening of 1 November, the entire group went to eat at a steakhouse in
Coventry Street. After the meal, Mr Kovtun returned to the hotel whilst the others went to watch the match at the Emirates Stadium. Following the match, the group returned to the Millennium Hotel. DI Mascall explained that the Coventry Street steakhouse was not tested for radiation: due to a mix-up, two other steakhouses were tested instead. The Emirates Stadium was, however, tested and secondary contamination was found in a block of seats that matched the evidence that had been obtained as to the tickets purchased for Mr Lugovoy's group.312
¶6.333 The telephone schedule shows a number of calls between Mr Lugovoy and
Mr Litvinenko on 2 November 2006. Several of the calls in the morning would appear to relate to Mr Litvinenko informing Mr Lugovoy of his illness and the meeting with Mr Quirke being cancelled. There was also a call in the afternoon and a further call in the evening.313
¶6.334 Mr Lugovoy and his entire party, including Mr Kovtun, flew back to Moscow on the
181following day, Friday 3 November. They flew from Heathrow on BA flight BA874, which took off shortly after midday. The aircraft making the flight that day was G-BZHA. When it was tested for radiation, low levels of secondary contamination were found in the seats in row 27 where Tatiana Lugovoya had sat with her boyfriend Maxim Begak. Considerably higher readings were associated with row 16, where Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun and Mr Sokolenko had sat together. The highest reading was taken on seat 16F, which was Mr Kovtun's seat.314