The Litvinenko Inquiry

The Litvinenko Inquiry
a result, Mr Ivanov would have suffered significant financial losses. 53 Mr Shvets
gave evidence to a similar effect 54
5.63 The possibility that the Ivanov report may have found its way to the Kremlin via
Mr Lugovoy, and that this may have been linked to Mr Litvinenko’s death, was first
aired in public by Mr Shvets in an interview broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in December
2006. A transcript of the interview is in evidence before me. 55 In the course of that
interview, Mr Shvets described Mr Litvinenko giving the Ivanov report to Mr Lugovoy
as having “triggered the entire assassination of Sasha.”
5.64 A similar theory was subsequently proposed in an article in the Novaya Gazeta dated
24 May 2007. That article suggested that the Ivanov report had come to the attention
of the authorities in Russia after it had been found in Mr Lugovoy’s possession when
he was stopped and searched at Sheremetyevo Airport on his return to Moscow from
London. 56
5.65 Is it possible that the Ivanov report triggered Mr Litvinenko’s killing, or at least had
some connection with it? One obvious difficulty with this theory is that, on Mr Shvets’
evidence, Mr Lugovoy only received the report a few weeks before what appears
to have been the first attempt to poison Mr Litvinenko. Mr Shvets was asked about
this, but was not shaken from his “positive” belief that the Ivanov report triggered
an operation to murder Mr Litvinenko. His reasoning, as he explained it to me, was
that such an operation could have been mounted quickly since the Russian security
agencies already had access to, and experience in the use of, polonium, as well
as inside knowledge of Mr Berezovsky’s office, and Mr Lugovoy had easy access
to Mr Litvinenko. He believed it to be credible, therefore, that the planning for
Mr Litvinenko’s poisoning had not started until September (and presumably, on his
reasoning, the end of September) 2006. 57 He concluded:
“… look, before Sasha was poisoned, he had lived in London for several years,
and over this period, he was consistent in making statements, critical statements,
against Putin… some of this criticism was very insulting, very personal, and still
Sasha was alive. Nothing happened. He was alive and well. And suddenly he was
poisoned. So it leads me to believe that we should be looking for something which
happened shortly before he was poisoned. Something changed in his life-style
shortly before he was poisoned, and what changes? It was the fact that he was
fired by Boris Berezovsky, it was the fact that he got involved in other business
activities, which leads to the report, et cetera.” 58
5.66 In his oral closing submissions on behalf of Marina Litvinenko, Mr Emmerson QC
described Mr Litvinenko’s action in giving a copy of the Shvets Ivanov report to
Mr Lugovoy as “a fatal mistake”. Mr Emmerson suggested that a similar significance
could be placed on the fact that Mr Lugovoy knew from his dealings at RISC that
Mr Litvinenko had been tasked with investigating Mr Gordeyev, who was, in his words,
“a high-ranking official in the Russian government”. Mr Emmerson submitted that from
the moment Mr Litvinenko gave Mr Lugovoy a copy of the Ivanov report: 59
53
Attew 13/112-113
54
Shvets 24/79-80
55
HMG000513
56
INQ015674
57
Shvets 24/82-84
58
Shvets 24/84-85
59
Emmerson 34/54; 34/59-60
102