Part 9: Who directed the killing?

Chapter 1: Introduction

¶9.1 I have made the finding that Mr Litvinenko was poisoned by Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun.

¶9.2 However, this immediately raises a further question. There is no evidence at all that either Mr Lugovoy or Mr Kovtun had any personal reason to kill Mr Litvinenko. Mr Lugovoy may have commented after Mr Litvinenko's death that he regarded Mr Litvinenko as a traitor, but I do not think for a moment that that feeling on its own would have been sufficient to motivate Mr Lugovoy to plan and conduct the protracted and costly operation against Mr Litvinenko that I have outlined above. Moreover, had Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun been acting on their own behalf, it seems highly unlikely that they would have had access to the polonium 210 that they used to poison Mr Litvinenko. All the evidence points in one direction, namely that, when they killed Mr Litvinenko, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were acting on behalf of someone else.

¶9.3 This Part will address the question of who directed Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun to kill Mr Litvinenko.

¶9.4 The structure of this Part will be as follows.

¶9.5 In Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 I will consider whether any of the individuals and organisations listed at paragraphs 17, 19, 20 and 21 of the List of Issues (see Appendix 3) (i.e. Boris Berezovsky, United Kingdom (UK) intelligence agencies, organised crime groups, Mario Scaramella, Chechen groups and Alexander Talik) had any involvement in Mr Litvinenko's death.

¶9.6 In Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 I will analyse the evidence relating to various aspects of the issue at paragraph 18 of the List of Issues – the possible involvement of Russian State agencies in Mr Litvinenko's death.

¶9.7 In Chapter 11 I will set out my conclusions on the issue of Russian State responsibility for Mr Litvinenko's death.

¶9.8 In Chapter 12 I will address one further issue, namely whether Nikolai Patrushev (the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2006) and/or President Putin bear any responsibility for Mr Litvinenko's death.

¶9.9 The factual content of these chapters will be drawn from the open evidence (I have analysed the closed evidence in Part 7). I stress, however, that, as with Part 8, the findings that I make below will be based on both the open and the closed evidence that I have heard.

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Chapter 2: Boris Berezovsky

¶9.10 There are two points to note about the suggestion that it was Mr Berezovsky who was ultimately responsible for ordering the killing of Mr Litvinenko.

¶9.11 The first point is that the motive that his accusers have always ascribed to Mr Berezovsky for wishing Mr Litvinenko dead is a fear of blackmail at the hands of his protégé. I have addressed the question of a rift between Mr Litvinenko and Mr Berezovsky, and the suggestion that Mr Litvinenko may have been blackmailing Mr Berezovsky, or planning to do so, in Part 5 above.

¶9.12 I am satisfied that Mr Litvinenko was not blackmailing Mr Berezovsky. Even if he did occasionally make comments suggesting taking some form of action against Mr Berezovsky (for example, the comments related by Dr Svetlichnaya and the conversation at the Golden Dragon related by Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun), I am quite satisfied that these were never put into effect. It is clear from the evidence that I have heard that it was not unusual for Mr Litvinenko to propose courses of action in conversation with friends and associates that never subsequently came to anything. Mr Litvinenko and Mr Berezovsky remained friends until the end of Mr Litvinenko's life. There was no blackmail, and therefore no motive for Mr Berezovsky to have Mr Litvinenko killed.

¶9.13 The second point is that the allegation that Mr Berezovsky was responsible for Mr Litvinenko's death is one that has been actively canvassed by Mr Lugovoy himself. Mr Lugovoy has not suggested that he killed Mr Litvinenko on Mr Berezovsky's behalf. Rather, Mr Lugovoy's argument has always been that he was not involved at all and that it was Mr Berezovsky who was responsible, perhaps with others, for the killing.

¶9.14 But I have now made the finding that it was Mr Lugovoy, with Mr Kovtun, who killed Mr Litvinenko.

¶9.15 There is no evidence at all that Mr Lugovoy might have been acting on Mr Berezovsky's behalf, and that hypothesis is inconsistent with the actions of both men since Mr Litvinenko's death. It is unlikely that Mr Lugovoy would have blamed Mr Berezovsky if he had been acting on his behalf when he poisoned Mr Litvinenko. As to Mr Berezovsky, I heard evidence from Mr Cotlick, his former personal assistant, that following Mr Litvinenko's death he spoke to Mr Lugovoy on the telephone and encouraged him to come to London and stand trial. He told Mr Lugovoy that he "could rely on the English justice system, and if he was really innocent, this would be found out by the court." He even offered to pay Mr Lugovoy's legal expenses.¹¹ Cotlick 25/64 This is all wholly inconsistent with the idea that in fact Mr Lugovoy killed Mr Litvinenko on Mr Berezovsky's behalf.

¶9.16 In summary, I am quite satisfied that Mr Berezovsky bore no responsibility for Mr Litvinenko's death.

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Chapter 3: UK intelligence agencies

¶9.17 The allegation that UK intelligence agencies were responsible for Mr Litvinenko's death is of a piece with the 'set up' issue that I have addressed in Part 8 above. Mr Lugovoy, for example, has advanced this allegation in the following terms:²² HMG000175 (pages 9-10)

"I was framed. I suspect this was some British intelligence operation involving Litvinenko and possibly Berezovsky that went wrong. I was contaminated by Litvinenko or someone else, not the other way round. I think polonium was planted on us and left in places we visited, to frame us."

¶9.18 I repeat what I have said at paragraphs 8.161 – 8.164 above. I heard no evidence to support this allegation.

¶9.19 I am entirely satisfied that UK intelligence agencies, and for that matter UK government bodies more generally, played no part at all in Mr Litvinenko's death.

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Chapter 4: Organised crime

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

¶9.21 Mr Litvinenko sought to expose these links, in particular in his book The Gang from the Lubyanka, which contained detailed allegations of collusion between FSB officers and organised crime.

¶9.22 Further, Mr Litvinenko passed information to the Mitrokhin Commission alleging that Semion Mogilevich, apparently one of the leaders of Russian organised crime, was an FSB agent with a longstanding personal relationship with President Putin.

¶9.23 Finally, I have also heard evidence that towards the end of his life Mr Litvinenko was assisting the Spanish authorities with investigations that they were conducting against members of Russian organised crime groups, and that he thought it possible that he might give evidence against them in court.

¶9.24 It follows from this short summary that a theory that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun killed Mr Litvinenko on the orders of one or more members of Russian crime gangs would not be implausible.

¶9.25 That theory, however, is not supported by the evidence that is available to me. Detective Inspector (DI) Mascall stated that the police investigation has not uncovered any evidence linking Mr Mogilevich directly to the poisoning.³³ Mascall 29/83-85 More broadly, none of the evidence suggests that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were commissioned to kill Mr Litvinenko by members of crime gangs. More than that, I am satisfied for reasons that I shall describe below that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun in fact received their instructions from another source.

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