The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 5 | Chapters 1 to 8 | Alexander Litvinenko’s final months
being worried that “he could be next.” 67 Mr Attew told me that Mr Litvinenko had been
“outraged” at Ms Politkovskaya’s death. 68
5.75 Mr Litvinenko attended two events in London held in response to Ms Politkovskaya’s
murder. The first was a memorial meeting held at Westminster on the afternoon of
13 October 2006; I will return to that meeting shortly.
5.76 The second of these events was a meeting at the Front Line Club in London on
the evening of 19 October 2006. Marina Litvinenko said that she had been aware
of the meeting at the time, but that she had not accompanied Mr Litvinenko to it. 69
Mr Zakayev told me that he had taken Mr Litvinenko to the meeting as his guest.
He was one of the platform speakers. During the meeting, Mr Litvinenko made a
short speech from the floor publicly accusing President Putin of being responsible
for Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. A video recording of that speech was made, which
was played to the Inquiry. 70 Mr Zakayev said that he “absolutely” agreed with what
Mr Litvinenko had said, although he had not said so expressly in his own speech at
the Front Line Club that evening because of the post that he then held as Minister of
Foreign Affairs in the exiled Chechen government.
5.77 When Mr Zakayev was asked whether he thought that Mr Litvinenko’s outspokenness
about Ms Politkovskaya’s death was linked in any way to his own death, Mr Zakayev
replied; “We were on the same list, Anna Politkovskaya, Litvinenko and myself.” 71
67
Quirke 11/64-66
68
Attew 13/20
69
Marina Litvinenko 4/38-42
70
INQ017681 [video]
71
Zakayev 26/160-161
105