The Litvinenko Inquiry

The Litvinenko Inquiry
with his account of conversations with C2 and Dr Shadrin, is a total fabrication. The
term that I used above, which I repeat, is that his story is a tissue of lies.
8.108 There must be a reason why Mr Kovtun has fabricated this elaborate story about
wishing to employ C2 to work in a restaurant in Moscow, and being unable to see
him because Dr Shadrin told him that Stratford was 3-4 hours drive from central
London. That reason is not difficult to deduce. I am satisfied that Mr Kovtun did wish
to enlist C2 as an accomplice in the plans that he and Mr Lugovoy were making to
poison Mr Litvinenko. I am satisfied that Mr Kovtun did tell D3 in the course of their
conversation in Hamburg that this was why he wished to make contact with C2, and
that D3 has told the truth about that conversation. And I am satisfied that Mr Kovtun
has fabricated the story about wishing to employ C2 – as well as his evidence about
D3’s unreliability – in order to conceal that truth.
8.109 There are three other matters that fortify me in these conclusions.
8.110 First, there is the forensic evidence, to which I have referred above, that demonstrates
that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were involved in a series of attempts to poison
Mr Litvinenko. Mr Kovtun’s boast that he was planning to poison Mr Litvinenko with “a
very expensive poison” may have appeared outlandish to D3, but there is a wealth of
independent evidence before me that shows that that is exactly what he was planning
to do.
8.111 Second, my findings that, by the time Mr Kovtun spoke to D3 on 30 October, he and
Mr Lugovoy had already made one, and perhaps two, unsuccessful attempts to kill
Mr Litvinenko are also of some significance here. Their previous lack of success makes
it more plausible that they wished to alter their methods and enlist some support.
8.112 Third, it is impossible to overlook the fact that only a few minutes after Mr Kovtun had
phoned C2 on Mr Lugovoy’s phone and discovered that he was too busy to meet that
day, 1 November, a call was made from the same phone to Mr Litvinenko. The call
to C2, which lasted one minute and 14 seconds, was timed at 11.33am. The call to
Mr Litvinenko, which lasted nearly five minutes, was timed at 11.41am (see paragraph
6.251(e) above).
8.113 The apparent link between the call to C2 and the call to Mr Litvinenko is highly
suggestive.
8.114 As I have recounted above, Mr Litvinenko told the police that Mr Lugovoy had
telephoned him during the morning of 1 November and said that, “he would like to meet
for a short time” later that day. Mr Litvinenko said that it was during this conversation
that the meeting at the Pine Bar was arranged. I am satisfied that Mr Litvinenko’s
account is accurate, and that the call in question was the call recorded as having been
made to Mr Litvinenko from Mr Lugovoy’s phone at 11.41am. I regard Mr Lugovoy’s
claim that in fact Mr Litvinenko called him and asked to meet, which is inconsistent
with the telephone evidence, as a deliberate attempt to mislead.
8.115 Further, I think it likely that Mr Lugovoy called Mr Litvinenko at 11.41am and suggested
a meeting later that day in direct consequence of the discussion that Mr Kovtun had
had with C2 a few minutes earlier. Once it had become apparent to Mr Lugovoy and
Mr Kovtun that they would not get any help from C2, at least not in the short term,
they decided to make another attempt to poison Mr Litvinenko themselves. Their plan,
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