The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 4 | Chapters 1 to 6 | Why would anyone wish to kill Alexander Litvinenko?
as we shall hear, was herself murdered outside her Moscow flat only a few weeks
before Mr Litvinenko himself was killed.
4.50 I heard evidence about a number of other strands to Mr Litvinenko’s campaigning
activity during the time that he lived in London. There are two of these to which I shall
briefly refer.
4.51 First, there was clear evidence that Mr Litvinenko had a role, although not a central
one, in a project to transcribe and publicise what are sometimes referred to as the
Kuchma tapes. Put shortly, I heard that these were tapes of conversations between
Leonid Kuchma, who was then President of Ukraine and various other people. The
tapes had been secretly recorded by a member of President Kuchma’s security staff
named Nikolai Melnychenko. Mr Berezovsky became involved as one of the funders
of a project to transcribe the tapes. It appears that for a time in 2002 and again in 2005
work on the transcription was carried out in London. Although Mr Litvinenko was not
involved in the actual transcription, he met and became friendly with Mr Melnychenko
and also a man named Yuri Shvets, who had come to London from his home in the
USA for this purpose. Mr Felshtinsky also said that he was himself involved. 53 We will
hear more of Mr Shvets in due course.
4.52 As Mr Goldfarb explained in his oral evidence, the particular reason for Mr Litvinenko’s
involvement in this project was the possibility that, “something could be found on
those tapes which relate[d] to the Russian situation”. 54 The evidence was to the effect
that some of the content of the tapes was indeed thought relevant to “the Russian
situation”. In particular, there were passages on the tapes that suggested links
between President Putin and organised crime, in particular Semion Mogilevich and a
company named the St Petersburg Real Estate Holding Company (SPAG), believed
to be a front company for the Tambov Group. 55
4.53 Of particular importance for present purposes, I heard evidence that Mr Litvinenko
made no secret either of his involvement in this process, or of his view of what the
transcripts showed. When Mr Goldfarb was asked whether Mr Litvinenko’s involvement
with the tapes was open knowledge, he replied, “I think so because he was giving
interviews about that, particularly about SPAG and Mogilevich, I think.” 56
4.54 The other strand of Mr Litvinenko’s activism that deserves mention at this stage is his
involvement with the Chechen cause.
4.55 I have referred to Mr Litvinenko’s growing sympathy for the Chechen cause, which
appears to have started with his experiences in the First Chechen War, and developed
as a result of his friendship with Mr Zakayev following his arrival in London. The
evidence is that he took up issues related to Chechen independence and the conduct
of the Russian authorities in resisting it, and indeed much of his campaigning work
from London was done via the medium of the Chechenpress website. 57
4.56 Beyond that, Mr Zakayev gave evidence that, at his request, both Mr Litvinenko and
Ms Politkovskaya served on a War Crimes Commission that had been established
under his chairmanship in 2004 by Chechnya’s President Maskhadov. Mr Zakayev
explained that both took an active part in the Committee’s work of attempting to
53
Marina Litvinenko 4/28-31; Goldfarb 26/35-37; Shvets 24/49-54; Felshtinsky 23/160
54
Goldfarb 26/37
55
Goldfarb 26/38-50
56
Goldfarb 26/50
57
Marina Litvinenko 3/135-136
61