The Litvinenko Inquiry

The Litvinenko Inquiry
3.62 The press conference received widespread publicity in the broadcast and print media.
3.63 At the time of the press conference, Yuri Felshtinsky was in Moscow, undertaking
preparatory work on a biography of Boris Berezovsky. In his evidence he emphasised
that Mr Berezovsky and Mr Putin were still friends at this point. He said that
Mr Berezovsky was, “hoping that he will use Putin in order to make major changes
within the FSB”. According to Mr Felshtinsky, it was Mr Berezovsky’s hope: “that as
a result of that press conference, all those old KGB generals would be fired from the
FSB and the new generation, new people, like Litvinenko, would replace them.” 52
Mr Putin’s reaction to the open letter and the press conference was not, however,
as Mr Berezovsky had hoped.
3.64 Professor Robert Service was until 2014 Professor of Russian History at Oxford
University; he gave expert evidence to the Inquiry on matters of Russian history (see
below 9.41 – 9.43). He suggested that, far from seeing the press conference as a
welcome step towards reform, Mr Putin probably regarded it as the first of a series of
occasions on which Mr Litvinenko was guilty of breaching the FSB code of loyalty. 53
As we shall see, there were some in the FSB who certainly did take that view.
Dismissal, arrest, prosecution, imprisonment
3.65 The period between the press conference in November 1998 and Mr Litvinenko’s
decision to leave Russia for good in September 2000 saw his position gradually
deteriorate.
3.66 In December 1998 Mr Litvinenko and all the officers involved in the press conference
were dismissed from the FSB. Mr Berezovsky gave them jobs as consultants.
3.67 An official investigation was opened into Mr Litvinenko’s record. Marina Litvinenko
recalled that he told her that the situation would develop in one of two ways, “they will
kill him, or he will be arrested”. 54
3.68 Mr Litvinenko was arrested on 25 March 1999. He was charged and detained in
the FSB Lefortovo prison in Moscow. The charges against Mr Litvinenko were of
exceeding his authority by assaulting a suspect. However, Mrs Litvinenko stated that
the investigator, named Nikolay Barsukov, had told her that the charges had been
brought in response to the press conference, and that; “if they were unsuccessful in
making the charges stick this time… they would come up with something else”. 55 The
events that followed certainly lend credence to this threat.
3.69 Mr Litvinenko spent eight months in detention at Lefortovo prison. Marina Litvinenko
stated that Mr Berezovsky made representations to Mr Putin on Mr Litvinenko’s behalf,
but without success. She also stated that Mr Litvinenko’s former colleagues were
pressured to give false evidence against him, but refused to do so. When the trial
eventually took place before the Moscow Regional Military Court on 26 November
1999, Mr Litvinenko was acquitted of all charges. 56
3.70 That, however, was far from the end of Mr Litvinenko’s difficulties. As Mrs Litvinenko
described, at the very moment that Mr Litvinenko was formally acquitted of the first
52
Felshtinsky 23/127 lines 11-17
53
INQ019146 (page 15 paragraph 46)
54
Marina Litvinenko 3/82-84; INQ017734 (pages 10-11 paragraphs 35-36)
55
INQ017734 (page 11 paragraph 37)
56
INQ017734 (pages 10-11 paragraphs 36,39-40)
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