The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 5 | Chapters 1 to 8 | Alexander Litvinenko’s final months
that it had been responsible for the explosion in Ingushetia that had killed Shamil
Basayev, a leading Chechen terrorist.
5.24 Against this backdrop, Professor Service expressed the view that the 2006 amendment
to the anti-extremist law had an influence going beyond the scope of its black letter
provisions. In his report he put the matter in this way:
“The amendment did, however, have a political consequence of importance
by broadening the spectrum of targets to be pursued by the security agencies.
Not only out-and-out terrorists were mentioned but ‘extremists’ in general, and
extremism itself was described only in relation to imprecisely delineated categories
of activity. The door was left open to brand a large swathe of opponents of Putin
and his administration as extremists who needed to be eliminated. And terrorism
and extremism were frequently mentioned in the same breath by Putin and his
ministers. There was little attempt to make an official distinction between the two
phenomena that the legislation was directed against. To that extent, there was an
implicit licensing package for FSB operations abroad as well as in Russia.” 12
5.25 Professor Service expanded on this reasoning in giving oral evidence. When asked
whether it was his view that the 2006 laws had more of a political than a legal effect,
he stated:
“Yes, I think that’s a fair summary. In legal terms, only one of them related to
legal encouragement for taking physical action abroad, but generally taking the
two together, the political effect was to engender an environment within the FSB
and within public opinion that there was little difference between acting against
extremism and acting against terrorism… legally speaking, there is a distinction, but
it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the authorities wanted to fudge that distinction
and just create a new feeling for the FSB to feel free to act without constraint.” 13
He continued:
“We don’t have definite documentation about exactly why President Putin introduced
these two legal changes in 2006, but we do know that they were introduced to the
maximum of publicity, so that it is inconceivable that they were not thought to be
important elements in reinforcing support in public opinion for what the authorities
wanted to do.” 14
And further:
“We simply don’t know the extent to which those two amendments affected the
operational activity of the FSB. It seems a strong possibility that those amendments
opened a channel for the FSB that wasn’t as wide beforehand.” 15
12
INQ019146 (page 22 paragraph 69)
13
Service 28/47 lines 4-14
14
Service 28/48 lines 3-9
15
Service 28/51 lines 2-6
91