The Litvinenko Inquiry
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Litvinenko</strong> <strong>Inquiry</strong><br />
a result, Mr Ivanov would have suffered significant financial losses. 53 Mr Shvets<br />
gave evidence to a similar effect 54<br />
5.63 <strong>The</strong> possibility that the Ivanov report may have found its way to the Kremlin via<br />
Mr Lugovoy, and that this may have been linked to Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong>’s death, was first<br />
aired in public by Mr Shvets in an interview broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in December<br />
2006. A transcript of the interview is in evidence before me. 55 In the course of that<br />
interview, Mr Shvets described Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong> giving the Ivanov report to Mr Lugovoy<br />
as having “triggered the entire assassination of Sasha.”<br />
5.64 A similar theory was subsequently proposed in an article in the Novaya Gazeta dated<br />
24 May 2007. That article suggested that the Ivanov report had come to the attention<br />
of the authorities in Russia after it had been found in Mr Lugovoy’s possession when<br />
he was stopped and searched at Sheremetyevo Airport on his return to Moscow from<br />
London. 56<br />
5.65 Is it possible that the Ivanov report triggered Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong>’s killing, or at least had<br />
some connection with it? One obvious difficulty with this theory is that, on Mr Shvets’<br />
evidence, Mr Lugovoy only received the report a few weeks before what appears<br />
to have been the first attempt to poison Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong>. Mr Shvets was asked about<br />
this, but was not shaken from his “positive” belief that the Ivanov report triggered<br />
an operation to murder Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong>. His reasoning, as he explained it to me, was<br />
that such an operation could have been mounted quickly since the Russian security<br />
agencies already had access to, and experience in the use of, polonium, as well<br />
as inside knowledge of Mr Berezovsky’s office, and Mr Lugovoy had easy access<br />
to Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong>. He believed it to be credible, therefore, that the planning for<br />
Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong>’s poisoning had not started until September (and presumably, on his<br />
reasoning, the end of September) 2006. 57 He concluded:<br />
“… look, before Sasha was poisoned, he had lived in London for several years,<br />
and over this period, he was consistent in making statements, critical statements,<br />
against Putin… some of this criticism was very insulting, very personal, and still<br />
Sasha was alive. Nothing happened. He was alive and well. And suddenly he was<br />
poisoned. So it leads me to believe that we should be looking for something which<br />
happened shortly before he was poisoned. Something changed in his life-style<br />
shortly before he was poisoned, and what changes? It was the fact that he was<br />
fired by Boris Berezovsky, it was the fact that he got involved in other business<br />
activities, which leads to the report, et cetera.” 58<br />
5.66 In his oral closing submissions on behalf of Marina <strong>Litvinenko</strong>, Mr Emmerson QC<br />
described Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong>’s action in giving a copy of the Shvets Ivanov report to<br />
Mr Lugovoy as “a fatal mistake”. Mr Emmerson suggested that a similar significance<br />
could be placed on the fact that Mr Lugovoy knew from his dealings at RISC that<br />
Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong> had been tasked with investigating Mr Gordeyev, who was, in his words,<br />
“a high-ranking official in the Russian government”. Mr Emmerson submitted that from<br />
the moment Mr <strong>Litvinenko</strong> gave Mr Lugovoy a copy of the Ivanov report: 59<br />
53<br />
Attew 13/112-113<br />
54<br />
Shvets 24/79-80<br />
55<br />
HMG000513<br />
56<br />
INQ015674<br />
57<br />
Shvets 24/82-84<br />
58<br />
Shvets 24/84-85<br />
59<br />
Emmerson 34/54; 34/59-60<br />
102