The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 6: The polonium trail – events in
October and November 2006
Chapter 1: Introduction
6.1 The police officers investigating Alexander Litvinenko’s death painstakingly pieced
together the last weeks of his life. In doing so, they employed standard techniques such
as interviewing Mr Litvinenko’s friends and associates, investigating the movements
of persons of interest, interrogating telephone records and seizing and viewing closed
circuit television (CCTV) footage. The material obtained in this way has all been made
available to me, and a large amount of it has been put in evidence.
6.2 One task that the police undertook was to compile a schedule of all telephone calls
made to and from individuals considered to be of relevance to this Inquiry during the
period June to November 2006. I adduced this (lengthy) document into evidence, and
will refer to it hereafter as ‘the telephone schedule’. 1
6.3 But in addition to such conventional sources of evidence, it became apparent that
there was a highly unusual, in fact unprecedented, line of inquiry to be followed.
6.4 Forensic scientists were sent to conduct tests for alpha radiation at a series of locations
across London and, subsequently, beyond. The results demonstrated widespread
radioactive contamination at locations that had been linked to Mr Lugovoy, Mr Kovtun
and Mr Litvinenko in a period of a little over two weeks from mid October until the
onset of Mr Litvinenko’s fatal illness in early November.
6.5 In this Part of the Report, I propose to set out the narrative of events during that period.
In doing so I shall refer not only to the extensive witness and documentary evidence
that has been adduced, but also to the body of evidence arising from the testing for
radioactive contamination – the evidence that has become popularly known as ‘the
polonium trail’.
1
In fact, there are two versions of the telephone schedule in evidence: the original schedule, INQ017809;
and a subsequent slightly more detailed schedule covering only the dates 31 October 2006 to 3 November
2006, INQ020044
109