Part 4: Why would anyone wish to kill Alexander Litvinenko?
Part 4: Why would anyone wish to kill Alexander Litvinenko?
Chapter 1: Introduction
¶4.1 On the evidence that I have heard, Alexander Litvinenko lived a most eventful life in the
United Kingdom (UK) between 2000 and 2006. He involved himself in a wide range of activities, many, as before, focused on challenging corruption in the Federal Security Service (FSB) and on combating organised crime. He also had to try to find a way of making a living in the UK using the skills and contacts that he had acquired as an FSB officer in Russia. The evidence suggests that, in the course of such activities, and just as he had in Russia, Mr Litvinenko may have made some dangerous enemies.
¶4.2 The purpose of this Part of the Report is to review the evidence that I have heard, both
52as to what Mr Litvinenko was doing during this period, and as to whom his activities might have upset. The question that underpins this exercise, and that I will come to address later in this Report, is simple: could any of Mr Litvinenko's activities during this period have provided a motive for murder?
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
Chapter 2: Enemy of the Russian State?
¶4.3 On 24 November 2006, the day after Mr Litvinenko's death, Sergey Abeltsev, a
member of the Russian State Duma, made a speech on the floor of the Duma in which he said:
"Last night Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital. The deserved punishment reached the traitor. I am confident that this terrible death will be a serious warning to traitors of all colours wherever they are located. In Russia, they do not pardon treachery."1 Marina Litvinenko 3/19-20; INQ017734 (page 2 paragraph 6) Goldfarb 26/123; Emmerson 1/147 INQ022399
¶4.4 On the same day, President Putin made comments to the media about Mr Litvinenko's
death with what Professor Service described as, "a verbal levity that border[ed] on the macabre". For example, President Putin observed that, "the people that have done this are not God, and Mr Litvinenko is, unfortunately, not Lazarus."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
¶4.5 Mr Abeltsev is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party in Russia. The leader of
that party, Vladimir Zhironovsky, described Mr Litvinenko following his death as a "scoundrel" and a "traitor" and suggested that he had been killed by MI6 on behalf of the FSB.3
¶4.6 During a radio interview in February 2007, Mr Gusak, Mr Litvinenko's former colleague in the FSB, expressed the view that Mr Litvinenko had deserved to be executed.4
¶4.7 The language that I have quoted in these paragraphs is couched in the strongest
terms. But it appears that, although extreme, such language does not misrepresent the way in which a section, at least, of the Russian people and government regarded Mr Litvinenko. Professor Service, who approached his analysis of these matters with commendable caution, gave oral evidence to the effect that, by the time of his death, Mr Litvinenko had come to be regarded as an enemy of the Russian State.5
¶4.8 What was it that Mr Litvinenko had done to earn such posthumous opprobrium?
¶Perceived betrayal of the FSB 4.9 There is strong evidence that Mr Litvinenko was regarded by those within the FSB as someone who had betrayed that organisation.
¶4.10 The starting point is the sequence of events that culminated in the November 1998 press
53conference. As I have described above, (see paragraph 3.60 – 3.62) Mr Litvinenko's escalating protest against what he regarded as the unlawful orders that he and his colleagues in the Department for the Investigation and Prevention of Organised Crime (URPO) had been given, was challenged at every stage by his superiors. There is evidence that Mr Kovalyev, the Head of the FSB, regarded Mr Litvinenko's actions in telling Mr Berezovsky of the order that he claimed to have received to kill him as a, "betrayal of the interests of the security services" (see paragraph 3.52 above). I also heard evidence that Mr Putin, Mr Kovalyev's successor as head of the FSB, publicly criticised Mr Litvinenko and his colleagues for going public with their allegations at the
¶Part 4 | Chapters 1 to 6 | Why would anyone wish to kill Alexander Litvinenko?
November 1998 press conference,6 and that the prosecutor, Mr Barsukov, told Marina Litvinenko that the charges he was bringing against Mr Litvinenko were a response to the press conference (see paragraph 3.68 above).
¶4.11 Marina Litvinenko's evidence was that the decision that she and her husband made to
leave Russia was based in part on a fear that the FSB retribution against Mr Litvinenko for what it regarded as his act of betrayal would end either in his indefinite detention or, worse, in his death. I have referred to Mr Felshtinsky's evidence that General Kokholkhov told him in May 2000 that if he came across Mr Litvinenko in a dark corner, "he would kill him with his own hands" (see paragraph 3.76 above).
¶4.12 The evidence suggests that Mr Litvinenko's flight from Russia did not soften in any
way the FSB's view of him. During the course of his interviews with Detective Inspector (DI) Hyatt, Mr Litvinenko described a phone call that he had received on his mobile telephone from his former URPO colleague Mr Ponkin. He said that he had received the call in April or May 2001 (i.e. a few months after his arrival in the UK), whilst visiting Mr Bukovsky at his home. Mr Litvinenko recalled that Mr Ponkin had said that he had just been questioned at the Military Prosecutor's Office by Mr Barsukov. He told DI Hyatt:
"Ponkin said that Barsukov asked him to give me a message that I should as soon as possible return to my country by myself, and then nothing will happen to me. And if you do not return yourself then you will either be brought back in a body bag, or you will be pushed under the train. And he also asked to tell me that… my wife Marina shouldn't be afraid of anything and she could travel freely, no one will touch her. I replied to Ponkin that this is very nice offer but I refuse it… that conversation I straight away re-told to Mr Bukovsky."7 INQ017734 (page 3 paragraph 8) INQ016642 (page 7) INQ017734 (page 23 paragraph 80) Mascall 8/2-4
¶4.13 When he gave oral evidence to me, Mr Bukovsky recalled what sounded very much
like the same incident. He described Mr Litvinenko receiving a call from "some former colleague from Lubyanka" whilst visiting him at his home in around 2002 "very soon after… his escape." He said that Mr Litvinenko had become "rather gloomy" as the call went on, and he had inferred from hearing one side of the conversation that Mr Litvinenko was being threatened. He recalled that, when the telephone conversation had finished, Mr Litvinenko recounted to him the substance of the call in the following terms, "do you feel safe, secure in Britain; come on, remember Trotsky".8 Goldfarb 26/28-35 Bukovsky 26/95-96 INQ018943 Horwell 33/61
¶4.14 A continuing interest in Mr Litvinenko on the part of the Russian authorities may also
54perhaps be evidenced by the continuation (indeed, it appears the escalation) of the criminal proceedings against him in Russia following his departure. I admitted into evidence a letter dated 3 May 2002 sent by Mr Litvinenko's Russian lawyer, named Mr Marov, to Mr Menzies, the British lawyer assisting Mr Litvinenko with his asylum claim.9 Mr Marov's letter indicated that a further (i.e. a fourth) set of proceedings had been instituted against Mr Litvinenko, and that the prosecutor wished to proceed with a trial in Mr Litvinenko's absence. The letter also cited a number of what were said to be instances of lack of due process on the part of the prosecutor. I am aware that the ongoing proceedings against Mr Litvinenko in Russia gave rise to at least one attempt on the part of the Russian authorities to secure his extradition. Unsurprisingly given Mr Litvinenko's successful asylum claim, the request was not granted. Mrs Litvinenko
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
gave evidence that Mr Litvinenko was convicted on one of the extant sets of proceedings against him in Russia during 2002.10
¶4.15 Just as the evidence suggests that the FSB's anger at what some at least of its
members appear to have regarded as Mr Litvinenko's betrayal of his old organisation did not diminish on his departure from Russia, so it is reasonable to speculate that such feelings of betrayal in fact increased over the following years. As I shall describe below, Mr Litvinenko wrote books that accused the FSB of corruption and also of responsibility for the mass murder of hundreds of Russian citizens in the so-called 'apartment bombings' of 1999. Further, there was certainly a belief amongst some FSB officers and others that Mr Litvinenko had started to work for MI6 following his arrival in the UK.
¶4.16 It is therefore at least possible that Mr Litvinenko's profile amongst members of the
FSB (and also perhaps amongst the wider military establishment) as an insider who had betrayed his own organisation did not decline following the press conference and Mr Litvinenko's departure from Russia, but in fact increased between 2000 and 2006.
¶4.17 There is one striking piece of evidence that seems to corroborate this point. I saw video
evidence of Russian soldiers using targets featuring Mr Litvinenko's face for target practice.11 Mrs Litvinenko gave oral evidence about this.12 She said that both she and Mr Litvinenko had heard that this was going on at some point in 2006, certainly before his death. Police enquiries suggested that the video footage was taken at the Vityaz special forces training centre in Balashikha.13 Mrs Litvinenko said that Mr Litvinenko had been a member of the Vityaz force in his early career before joining the FSB.
¶Membership of Boris Berezovsky's circle 4.18 I have referred several times to the close relationship between Mr Litvinenko and
Boris Berezovsky. It began in the mid 1990s when Mr Litvinenko was assigned to investigate an attempted assassination of Mr Berezovsky. Mr Litvinenko subsequently earned Mr Berezovsky's gratitude when he protected him from arrest in connection with the murder of Mr Listyev. I have explained in Part 3 above the role that Mr Berezovsky played in the whistleblowing saga, and in particular his attempts to support Mr Litvinenko's demands for reform of the FSB.
¶4.19 At the time of those events, Mr Berezovsky enjoyed considerable political influence as
a close associate of President Yeltsin. As I indicated above, at the time of the November 1998 press conference, Mr Berezovsky regarded himself as a friend of Mr Putin, who had replaced Mr Kovalyev as head of the FSB. Moreover, as Mr Felshtinsky explained in evidence, Mr Berezovsky appears to have had (or at least claimed to have had) a role in the events that led to Mr Putin being elected President in 2000.14
¶4.20 This friendship, however, did not last. As Professor Service has explained:
55"Tension between Putin and Berezovski started almost as soon as Yeltsin resigned the Presidency in December 1999. Berezovski relished the reputation of king- maker. He claimed responsibility for Putin's rise to the Presidency, and no doubt his
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bouncy condescension grated upon Putin. When Putin took decisions that clashed with Berezovski's interests, Berezovski instructed the national TV station under his control to criticise Putin. Berezovski quickly lost the contest. Putin told him directly that no businessman, however high and mighty, was going to determine public policy any longer."15 Marina Litvinenko 3/35-36 INQ019146 (page 24 paragraph 75) Service 28/51 lines 2-6 Marina Wall 32/55 INQ017779 Dombey 23/22 By letter to the Chairman under this paragraph the Minister may remove from the scope of this Notice any document or information referred to in the Schedule.
¶4.21 Mr Berezovsky left Russia at the end of 2000 and became a political exile in London,
where he claimed, and was ultimately granted, asylum. I heard evidence from Professor Service, Mr Goldfarb and others that, following his arrival in London, Mr Berezovsky used his great wealth to become a vocal critic of President Putin, and to fund others to do likewise. It was also clear that Mr Litvinenko played a leading role in this respect – as Professor Service put it, "Berezovski encouraged and financed emigres who shared his hostility to Putin, and Litvinenko was the most prominent and ebullient of them."16 INQ017734 (page 3 paragraph 9) INQ019146 (page 25 paragraph 77) Goldfarb 26/56-57 Mascall 8/78 INQ017728; INQ020308 Dombey 23/20-32 The Chairman may invite the Minister to amend this Restriction Notice at any time upon providing the Minister with a draft of the proposed amendment and written reasons for it. Another of this group of emigres in Mr Berezovsky's circle was the Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev. As I have mentioned above, Mr Litvinenko and Mr Zakayev became very close friends, and their two families lived so close to each other that they regarded themselves as neighbours.
¶4.22 I will turn shortly to consider the various activities upon which Mr Litvinenko became
engaged during this period, and the causes that he espoused. Before doing so, however, it is worth noting a point that Mr Goldfarb made in evidence, namely that Mr Litvinenko was putting himself at risk simply by associating with two men who were, as he put it, "demonised by Russian propaganda as arch enemies." Extradition requests in respect of both Mr Berezovsky and Mr Zakayev were vigorously pursued by the Russian government. Mr Zakayev was, in Mr Goldfarb's words, "characterised by [the] Russian foreign minister as [the] Russian Osama Bin Laden and accused of gross terrorism," while Mr Berezovsky was, "depicted by the Russian propaganda as somebody who sponsors terrorism." Mr Goldfarb said that, "an association with Boris and with Zakayev … was [a] kind of kiss of death, if you want".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.
¶4.23 I note, of course, that this is no more than a contextual matter, and that Mr Goldfarb is
not (and would not, I think, claim to be) a neutral commentator on these events. But the point that he makes has a resonance with a point made by Professor Service in the expert report that he prepared:
"Some kind of action by the FSB against Berezovski and his associates, especially Litvinenko, was made likely by their sustained media campaign against the Putin administration. The form of such action could not be predicted."18 Marina Litvinenko 3/40 lines 24-25 INQ019146 (page 25 paragraph 79) BLK000134 Mascall 8/76 Bruce Burgess 21/1-171 Mascall 29/77-78
¶4.24 I also note that, on the evidence I have heard, there appear to have been at least two
occasions during this period on which Mr Litvinenko became involved in potentially dangerous incidents as a consequence of his connection with Mr Berezovsky.
¶4.25 First, in 2003, Mr Litvinenko was one of those in Mr Berezovsky's entourage who became
56involved with a man named Mr Terluk. Mr Litvinenko made a lengthy contemporaneous statement about these events for the purposes of Mr Berezovsky's asylum appeal, which I have admitted into evidence.19 According to that statement, Mr Terluk claimed in 2003 to have been instructed by an official from the Russian Embassy in London
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
to conduct what appeared to have been some form of reconnaissance exercise for a possible attempt to assassinate Mr Berezovsky, perhaps by poisoning him. I am aware that, in more recent years, Mr Terluk has given a very different version of these events, which was the subject of contested defamation proceedings in the High Court in London.20 I should make it clear that, whilst I have read and taken into account the findings of Mr Justice Eady in the defamation proceedings, I have not sought to investigate the true facts of this episode, which are highly contentious and of only peripheral importance to my Terms of Reference.
¶4.26 The second incident that I have in mind took place in October 2004, when the houses
of both Mr Litvinenko and Mr Zakayev were firebombed, apparently by two Chechen men who were in dispute with Mr Berezovsky. The evidence that I have about this episode, which is limited, suggests that the dispute had arisen over a payment that one of the Chechen men claimed he was owed for a trip to Paris, which he said he had made at Mr Berezovsky's request, in connection with a deal relating to the plans for a 'nuclear suitcase bomb'. Prior to the firebombing of his house, Mr Litvinenko had been attempting to mediate on Mr Berezovsky's behalf.21
¶4.27 As with the Terluk episode, I am not in a position to make any findings as to the rights
and wrongs of this episode, which took place more than ten years ago. I refer to the two incidents because they do perhaps give a flavour of the life that Mr Litvinenko was living, and the risks that he was running, as a member of Mr Berezovsky's entourage during this period.
¶Criticism of President Putin and his regime 4.28 It is clear on the evidence that the profile that Mr Litvinenko established during the
time that he lived in London was considerably greater than simply as a member of Mr Berezovsky's circle. He had a reputation of his own as a campaigner and commentator, and an outspoken one at that. I have already referred to Professor Service's characterisation of Mr Litvinenko as the "most prominent and ebullient" of the critics of President Putin around Mr Berezovsky. Professor Service added that "Litvinenko's denunciations were fierce".22 Sixsmith The Litvinenko File (pages 78-79); Cowell The Terminal Spy (pages 103-104) INQ019146 (page 25 paragraph 77) Marina Litvinenko 4/110-111 Marina Wall 32/75 Mascall 22/127 A1 2/131-140
¶4.29 I heard from a number of witnesses, including Marina Litvinenko, Mr Goldfarb
and Mr Bukovsky, about the way in which Mr Litvinenko's political understanding and convictions developed following his arrival in London. It was, of course, such convictions that underpinned his campaigning activities. Mr Bukovsky, in particular, gave compelling evidence regarding the new understanding of Russian history in general and the history of the KGB/FSB in particular that Mr Litvinenko developed after he arrived in this country.23
¶4.30 Perhaps the most significant pieces of Mr Litvinenko's campaigning work were the
57two books that he co-authored during his early years in London. The first, published in Russian in 2001, was subsequently published in English as Blowing Up Russia. The second, which Mr Litvinenko wrote in 2001 and 2002, was never published in English, but its Russian title translates as The Gang from the Lubyanka.
¶Part 4 | Chapters 1 to 6 | Why would anyone wish to kill Alexander Litvinenko?
¶4.31 Mr Litvinenko researched and wrote Blowing Up Russia with Mr Felshtinsky, who
had helped him and his family escape from Russia. The subject of the book was the apartment bombings that had taken place in Russia in September 1999. Enormous bombs had exploded, several days apart, in four apartment blocks. Nearly 300 people had been killed, and many more injured. The blame for the bombings had been officially attributed to Chechen separatists; this formed an important part of the context for the start of the Second Chechen War shortly thereafter. Mr Putin was Prime Minister at the time of the apartment bombings, having been promoted from his position as Head of the FSB in August 1999. The reaction to the bombings and public support for the war was one of the factors that assisted his political rise in the following months, culminating in his election as President in March 2000.
¶4.32 The theory that Mr Litvinenko and Mr Felshtinsky proposed in their book was that
the apartment bombings had not been the work of Chechen terrorists at all. They asserted, rather, that the bombings had been the work of the FSB, designed to provide a justification for war in Chechnya and, ultimately, to boost Mr Putin's political prospects.
¶4.33 On the evidence I heard, the book was more than a political tract – it was the product
of careful research. Professor Service's view was that the two men had "credibly investigated" the issue and, although their contentions about it had not been "proved 100 per cent," he considered they were more likely than not to be accurate. He said that: "the Felshtinsky and Litvinenko book piled up the evidence pointing a very damaging finger at the FSB and its involvement in those explosions".24 Zakayev 26/142 lines 9-11 Service 28/30-31; 28/69-70; Felshtinsky 23/175-177 Goldfarb 5/102-107 Elenora Wall 32/77 INQ016403 (page 31)
¶4.34 Mr Felshtinsky described in oral evidence how he and Mr Litvinenko had first discussed
the apartment bombings when they were together in Moscow in September 2000, at about the time that Mr Litvinenko was deciding to leave Russia forever. They subsequently worked on the book together after Mr Litvinenko's arrival in London (although the evidence was to the effect that Mr Felshtinsky took the leading role).25 The evidence was that the funding for the work that both men did in writing the book was provided by Mr Berezovsky.26
¶4.35 Mr Felshtinsky gave evidence that the book was first published in August 2001 as
a special edition of the journal Novaya Gazeta, which Mr Felshtinsky described as "a major oppositionist newspaper in Russia."27 Marina Litvinenko 3/44 lines 19-20 Felshtinsky 23/136-137 Reilly 10/27-28 INQ006201 INQ014620; INQ014621 One of the journalists who wrote for Novaya Gazeta was Anna Politkovskaya, to whom I shall return. Mr Felshtinsky said that the book's publication: "was a big deal because the newspaper printed … 100,000 copies and they selected the best chapters for publication, so, yes, this was a big deal."28 Goldfarb 27/108 lines 8-15 Felshtinsky 23/175 lines 14-17 Attew 13/23 Moughton 8/94-116 INQ017548 (pages 8-9)
¶4.36 The publication of the book did not, however, mark the end of Mr Litvinenko's campaigning work on this issue.
¶4.37 As I understood Mr Goldfarb's evidence, the publication of the book was only one
58part of a larger strategy, supported and funded by Mr Berezovsky, to publicise the allegations regarding the FSB's responsibility for the apartment bombings. Apart from producing and promoting the book, Mr Berezovsky also funded the making of a film
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
that rehearsed the allegations – which he arranged to be shown (with some fanfare, it would seem) in March 2002 at the Royal United Services Institute in London.29 Mr Berezovsky commissioned Mr Felshtinsky and Mr Litvinenko to try to gather further evidence about what had happened in 1999. In Moscow, Mr Berezovsky encouraged and supported the establishment of a Commission to conduct a public investigation into the allegations. I heard that the Commission had about 15 members, including politicians, lawyers and journalists, as well as the daughter of one of the victims of the bombings. The Commission was founded jointly by a Member of Parliament (MP) and "old-time Russian dissident"30 BLK000253 (page 3) Goldfarb 5/122 Shvets 24/56-58 INQ006201 (page 15) INQ022423; INQ022433 named Sergei Kovalyov and another MP named Sergei Yushenkov. Another of its members was Yuri Shchekochikhin, a journalist who had written for Novaya Gazeta about corruption in URPO at the time of Mr Litvinenko's press conference.31
¶4.38 The evidence shows that Mr Litvinenko was very much involved in this activity.
I summarise. He helped to promote the film. He undertook further investigations with Mr Felshtinsky, including travelling with him to Georgia to try to interview a Chechen named Ahmed Gochiyaev, who was said by the Russian authorities to have been the mastermind behind the bombings.32 He publicly supported the Commission in Moscow by appearing at its hearings via videolink. He drew his friend Mr Trepashkin into working with Mr Yushenkov; Mr Trepashkin undertook his own investigations in Moscow and discovered, for example, evidence that Mr Gochiyaev had been framed.33 Mr Litvinenko also made initial enquiries into separate allegations that the FSB might have been involved in perpetrating the Moscow theatre siege in October 2002, another mass casualty event that had been blamed by the Russian authorities on Chechen terrorists. Mr Litvinenko's enquiries into this matter involved trying to trace a Chechen named Mr Terkibayev; I heard that these enquiries were subsequently pursued by Mr Yushenkov, and later by Ms Politkovskaya.34
¶4.39 It appears that not only was Mr Litvinenko deeply involved in these interrelated
activities, but that he became something of a public figurehead for the whole enterprise. Mr Goldfarb referred, in this context, to: "an understanding in our circle that Sasha would be essentially the face of the campaign to inform the public opinion and the powers that be that the FSB might have been involved in the apartment bombings."35 Marina Litvinenko 4/85 lines 10-14 Goldfarb 27/110 Svetlichnaya 25/82-98 INQ006218 (page 15) INQ020031 (page 5 paragraphs S27-S31)
¶4.40 I heard that Mr Litvinenko's second book was written between 2001 and 2002. It was
59written in Russian and, although subsequently translated into Polish and Bulgarian, an English translation has never been produced.36 Its title translates as The Gang from the Lubyanka. Like Blowing Up Russia, this book was also funded by Mr Berezovsky. I heard from Marina Litvinenko and from Mr Goldfarb that the book took the form of transcripts of interviews between Mr Litvinenko and a Russian journalist named Akram Murtazaev, which had been edited by Mr Goldfarb. The book contained a record of Mr Litvinenko's own experiences in Russia in the years before he had left, as well as allegations of corruption and other criminality on behalf of the FSB in general and Mr Putin in particular.37 The book was published in early 2002 by a company that
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Mr Goldfarb, financed by Mr Berezovsky, had set up for the purpose. It was printed in New York and also in Latvia, in the latter case with the intention of transporting the books into Russia.38 I will return below to what happened when this was attempted.
¶4.41 I should add that I heard that Mr Litvinenko, with assistance from Mr Goldfarb,
subsequently wrote an extended essay that was described as, "a distilled version of what he had said on The Gang from the Lubyanka."39 INQ017734 (page 7 paragraphs 20-21) Goldfarb 26/28-30 Attew 13/25-27 Mascall 9/9-10 INQ022423 That document, which was never published, was titled The Uzbek File, and I have admitted a translated copy into evidence.40
¶4.42 Unsurprisingly, these activities on the part of Mr Litvinenko and others do not appear to have gone unnoticed by the authorities in Moscow.
¶4.43 I have referred above (at paragraphs 4.12 – 4.13) to the threat from Mr Barsukov
that Mr Litvinenko received whilst visiting Mr Bukovsky in about May 2001, by way of a phone call from his former subordinate, Mr Ponkin. In a witness statement dated 10 October 2003, Mr Litvinenko suggested that he had in fact received a number of calls from Mr Ponkin at around that time, and that Mr Ponkin had conveyed warnings about Mr Litvinenko's activities in the UK. In his statement Mr Litvinenko said that: "Ponkin passed on to me threats made by the FSB to kill me and warnings not to write books or to speak out against various matters."41 INQ017734 (pages 7-8 paragraph 23) INQ014928 Shvets 24/65 Mascall 9/35-37 INQ022423 (page 7 paragraph 30) There were other similar incidents.
¶4.44 Mrs Litvinenko described an incident when an official from the Russian Embassy in
London came to the door of her flat demanding to see Mr Litvinenko.42 This evidence appears to correspond with a letter, dated 22 March 2002, written by Mr Menzies, Mr Litvinenko's solicitor, to the Home Office. The letter refers to "repeated visits" being made by an official from the Embassy, whose manner was described as "persistent and harassing."43 INQ017734 (page 8 paragraph 24) HMG000307 INQ006481 Mascall 9/27 Emmerson 1/156-157
¶4.45 Later in 2001, on 12 October, Mr Litvinenko received an email from his friend
Mr Trepashkin in Moscow. The email gave news of a more explicit threat that Mr Trepashkin said he had heard from Victor Shebalin, another of Mr Litvinenko's former colleagues from URPO days. The first paragraph of the email made a direct reference to Mr Litvinenko's book The Gang from the Lubyanka. It went on (in translation):
"I had a meeting today with Victor Shebalin, who has wide contacts with the FSB employees as a former colonel of the FSB. During our conversation he stated, that you are 'sentenced' to extrajudicial elimination, meaning that you definitely will be killed after publication of your last book. He also asked to stress that he will not going to do anything with his murder [sic]. He repeated this several times. Shebalin did not say who exactly is going to eliminate you, but he hinted that such persons do exist. (So, you can write your last will in advance.)"44 Marina Litvinenko 3/71-74; INQ017734 (pages 8-9 paragraphs 27-29) INQ015366 Shvets 24/81-82 COM00046001; COM00198001 Mascall 29/77-78
60Amongst the documentary evidence there is a further letter from Mr Menzies to the Home Office about this email. That letter recorded Mr Litvinenko's response to the email, namely that he, "does not consider that there is likely to be any substance
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
behind this threat."45 BLK000253 (page 10) HMG000308 Attew 13/37 Mascall 9/27-28 INQ019146 (page 15 paragraph 46) Subsequent events may have proved him wrong. That is one of the matters that I have to decide.
¶4.46 I heard evidence from Marina Litvinenko that the FSB may have gone a step beyond
issuing threats to Mr Litvinenko, and may have tried to implicate him in a crime in London. She recounted how, in early 2003, Mr Ponkin came to London and tried to involve Mr Litvinenko in a plot to kill President Putin. She said that Mr Litvinenko quickly came to the view that this was a provocation orchestrated by the FSB, and reported the matter to the British police. Mr Ponkin and another man with whom he was travelling were deported.46 If Mr Litvinenko was right about what Mr Ponkin was trying to achieve, it would seem to suggest that Mr Litvinenko was a sufficiently important target for the FSB that they were prepared to take action against him overseas.
¶4.47 I referred above to the arrangements that were made to print copies of The Gang from
the Lubyanka in Latvia. Mr Goldfarb described in his oral evidence how the first batch of these books was successfully smuggled into Russia in mid 2002:47
"…we designed an elaborate scheme to have this truck with books go by land from Riga to Moscow, and somehow we managed to get it through customs as printed material without – nobody looked. And then it was met by Mr Trepashkin in Moscow who arranged for warehousing, and for several kiosks in the centre of Moscow to sell it, and I think even in the State Duma. So it was a total surprise to the authorities when it suddenly appeared."
Mr Goldfarb went on, however, to describe how the second shipment in early 2003, which contained copies of both Mr Litvinenko's books, was stopped on the highway by the FSB, with all the books being confiscated.
¶4.48 In a similar vein, I heard that attempts to distribute and show Mr Berezovsky's film
about the apartment bombings in Russia, which were led by Mr Yushenkov, were also disrupted. As Mr Goldfarb put it in his oral evidence, "people got beaten up and theatres were closed, and that created more scandals."48 HMG000115 Goldfarb 5/120; 26/19 Shvets 24/73 INQ013787 (page 4) Goldfarb 5/115; 5/121-123
¶4.49 I also heard evidence that these interrelated campaigns, in which Mr Litvinenko played
61a key role, were disrupted by more than the seizing of books or the breaking up of film screenings. Both Mr Yushenkov and Mr Shchekochikhin lost their lives in 2003; Mr Yushenkov was shot dead in a Moscow street49 and Mr Shchekochikhin died in suspicious circumstances, suspected to have been poisoned50 (I shall return to this later). In December 2003, Mr Trepashkin, in Russia, was arrested for illegal possession of a weapon (Mr Goldfarb suggested that the weapon had been planted by the FSB) shortly before he was due to represent two Muslims accused of involvement in the apartment bombings.51 When Mr Litvinenko and Mr Felshtinsky visited Georgia in an attempt to meet Mr Gochiyaev, their driver was killed and they were told to leave the country immediately for their own safety. Mr Terkibayev was killed in a car accident shortly after Ms Politkovskaya had published an interview with him in Novaya Gazeta in which he had implicated the FSB in the Moscow theatre siege.52 Ms Politkovskaya,
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as we shall hear, was herself murdered outside her Moscow flat only a few weeks before Mr Litvinenko himself was killed.
¶4.50 I heard evidence about a number of other strands to Mr Litvinenko's campaigning
activity during the time that he lived in London. There are two of these to which I shall briefly refer.
¶4.51 First, there was clear evidence that Mr Litvinenko had a role, although not a central
one, in a project to transcribe and publicise what are sometimes referred to as the Kuchma tapes. Put shortly, I heard that these were tapes of conversations between Leonid Kuchma, who was then President of Ukraine and various other people. The tapes had been secretly recorded by a member of President Kuchma's security staff named Nikolai Melnychenko. Mr Berezovsky became involved as one of the funders of a project to transcribe the tapes. It appears that for a time in 2002 and again in 2005 work on the transcription was carried out in London. Although Mr Litvinenko was not involved in the actual transcription, he met and became friendly with Mr Melnychenko and also a man named Yuri Shvets, who had come to London from his home in the USA for this purpose. Mr Felshtinsky also said that he was himself involved.53 We will hear more of Mr Shvets in due course.
¶4.52 As Mr Goldfarb explained in his oral evidence, the particular reason for Mr Litvinenko's
involvement in this project was the possibility that, "something could be found on those tapes which relate[d] to the Russian situation".54 Marina Litvinenko 3/82-84; INQ017734 (pages 10-11 paragraphs 35-36) Goldfarb 26/37 Shvets 24/79-80 Krgo 9/49 INQ019146 (page 19 paragraph 61) The evidence was to the effect that some of the content of the tapes was indeed thought relevant to "the Russian situation". In particular, there were passages on the tapes that suggested links between President Putin and organised crime, in particular Semion Mogilevich and a company named the St Petersburg Real Estate Holding Company (SPAG), believed to be a front company for the Tambov Group.55
¶4.53 Of particular importance for present purposes, I heard evidence that Mr Litvinenko
made no secret either of his involvement in this process, or of his view of what the transcripts showed. When Mr Goldfarb was asked whether Mr Litvinenko's involvement with the tapes was open knowledge, he replied, "I think so because he was giving interviews about that, particularly about SPAG and Mogilevich, I think."56 INQ017734 (pages 10-11 paragraphs 36,39-40) Goldfarb 26/50 INQ015674 Mascall 9/96-97 Goldfarb 26/26
¶4.54 The other strand of Mr Litvinenko's activism that deserves mention at this stage is his involvement with the Chechen cause.
¶4.55 I have referred to Mr Litvinenko's growing sympathy for the Chechen cause, which
appears to have started with his experiences in the First Chechen War, and developed as a result of his friendship with Mr Zakayev following his arrival in London. The evidence is that he took up issues related to Chechen independence and the conduct of the Russian authorities in resisting it, and indeed much of his campaigning work from London was done via the medium of the Chechenpress website.57
¶4.56 Beyond that, Mr Zakayev gave evidence that, at his request, both Mr Litvinenko and
62Ms Politkovskaya served on a War Crimes Commission that had been established under his chairmanship in 2004 by Chechnya's President Maskhadov. Mr Zakayev explained that both took an active part in the Committee's work of attempting to
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
63gather evidence of Russian war crimes in Chechnya. Mr Zakayev's evidence was that the fact that Mr Litvinenko and Ms Politkovskaya were serving on the Committee was public knowledge, and that, in his view, the Russian military and FSB would have been "afraid" that they might have faced charges in an international war crimes tribunal as a result of the Committee's work.58
¶Part 4 | Chapters 1 to 6 | Why would anyone wish to kill Alexander Litvinenko?