The Litvinenko Inquiry

The Litvinenko Inquiry
Chapter 7: Events in Hamburg 28 October –
1 November
6.190 Before turning to the group trip to London that commenced on 31 October, I propose
briefly to consider the evidence relating to Mr Kovtun’s stay in Hamburg that
immediately preceded it.
6.191 As DI Mascall explained in the course of his oral testimony to the Inquiry, 173 the
evidence relating to this part of the narrative consists largely of the fruits of an
investigation conducted by the German authorities in the aftermath of Mr Litvinenko’s
death. That investigation was commenced in late 2006 after the Metropolitan Police
Service alerted their German colleagues to the details that they had uncovered as to
Mr Kovtun’s visit to Hamburg. The German police subsequently shared the evidence
that they had obtained with the British police.
6.192 One piece of the evidence that emerged from the German investigation is potentially
of considerable significance. It concerns a conversation that one of the German
witnesses, known to us as witness D3, says that he had with Mr Kovtun on the evening
of 30 October 2006. As we shall see, the German and British investigating teams
reached different conclusions as to the reliability of this evidence. The German police
thought that D3 was lying. The British police thought that he might well be telling the
truth. As DI Mascall stated, one explanation for this difference of views lay in the fact
that the German police only had access to the relatively limited evidence that they
themselves had obtained, whereas the British police could place D3’s account in
the context of all the other information that they had gathered in the course of their
investigation. 174
6.193 For the purposes of this Inquiry, the question of the weight to be placed on D3’s
evidence is of course a matter for me.
Outline of events
6.194 The core events of this episode emerged clearly from the evidence and are, I think,
uncontroversial. They may be summarised as follows:
a. On the morning of Saturday 28 October – the same morning that Mr Lugovoy
was returning to Moscow from London – Mr Kovtun took an Aeroflot flight from
Moscow to Hamburg 175
b. Mr Kovtun was collected from Hamburg airport by his ex-wife Marina Wall, her
partner Radoslaw Pietras and her children. He then returned with them to their
flat and stayed there that night 176
173
Mascall 30/24-38
174
Mascall 30/29-30; 30/36-37
175
Mascall 24/2
176
Jolly 32/60 note that many of the dates given by Marina Wall during her interviews were one day out.
148