The Litvinenko Inquiry
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Litvinenko</strong> <strong>Inquiry</strong><br />
6.264 C2 himself gave oral evidence to the <strong>Inquiry</strong>. 241 He said that he had worked for some<br />
years at Il Porto in the 1990s, initially as a kitchen porter and latterly as a chef de partie<br />
(in a statement prepared after he had given evidence, C2 clarified that in his last two<br />
years at Il Porto he worked as head chef when the other chef was absent). 242 In 2000<br />
he had left Germany, returning to his home country of Albania. He had subsequently<br />
travelled to the UK and settled in London. He said that he had known Mr Kovtun at Il<br />
Porto, but that they had not been friends. <strong>The</strong>y had not shared a language, and had<br />
therefore been unable to talk to each other.<br />
6.265 C2 recalled receiving a call from Mr Kovtun on 1 November 2006. He said that at that<br />
time he had not spoken to Mr Kovtun or had any other contact with him for six years.<br />
C2 said that when Mr Kovtun called he was in Stratford in east London. He was in<br />
a coffee shop helping with some menus. He said that the call had been brief. After<br />
Mr Kovtun had introduced himself, he had said (in English) that he was in London<br />
and had suggested meeting up. C2 had said that he was busy, but that he would call<br />
Mr Kovtun back and meet him when he had time. C2 said that that was the end of the<br />
call. He said that it took one minute.<br />
6.266 C2 said that he had called Mr Kovtun back. He struggled to remember how long after<br />
Mr Kovtun’s call this had been. He initially thought that it may have been two or three<br />
weeks later, but he accepted that it might have been (as the telephone schedule<br />
suggests) as soon as the next day. He said that when he did call he suggested to<br />
Mr Kovtun that they meet up. Mr Kovtun had said that he was busy but that he would<br />
see him later. C2 expected him to call back, but he never did.<br />
6.267 Mr Kovtun’s explanation for and account of this episode were strikingly different.<br />
6.268 In his recent statement, Mr Kovtun stated that the reason he had obtained C2’s<br />
phone number and then contacted him in London was that he wanted to ask him to<br />
come to Moscow and work as the chef in a restaurant that he and Mr Lugovoy were<br />
planning to open. He described C2 as his “friend”, and said that he was a specialist<br />
in Mediterranean cuisine. 243 As to his communications with C2 in London, he said as<br />
follows: 244<br />
“at 16.00-17.00 on 1 November 2006 I had a meeting planned with [C2] … who is<br />
my friend and former colleague in the restaurant business in Hamburg to whom<br />
Lugovoy and I wished to offer a job in a restaurant in Moscow. However, in the<br />
presence of my acquaintance Aleksandr Shadrin, in a telephone conversation [C2]<br />
suggested that I come to him for a meeting in a district of London far from the<br />
centre, the name of which I cannot remember. In answer to the question I put to<br />
Shadrin as to how to get to the district named by [C2] and how long it would take<br />
to get there, he replied that at that time of day in London in would take 3-4 hours<br />
to get there because of traffic congestion. Since I did not want to spend such<br />
a long time reaching the meeting place after having flown in from Hamburg, I<br />
agreed with [C2] that we would postpone our meeting until the following day, at a<br />
more convenient time for both of us. [C2] agreed to ring on 2 November 2006 and<br />
discuss the possibility of meeting and the place at which to meet.”<br />
241<br />
C2 24/14-39<br />
242<br />
C2 32/43-44<br />
243<br />
INQ021208 (page 11)<br />
244<br />
INQ021208 (pages 9-10)<br />
162