The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
projects and the procedure that he has to adhere, but I don’t know whether he
actually listened to me very carefully.” 235
When asked whether he remembered Mr Kovtun being present, Dr Shadrin said:
“I don’t remember, actually. Probably he was. But effectively they were talking
more about football, and openly I just quitted the meeting, because I think that was
probably early – it was midday/early afternoon, because obviously everyone was
going to… attend the match.” 236
When asked whether he recalled the meeting being disturbed by Mr Lugovoy receiving
a call from anyone else, Dr Shadrin replied:
“No. Actually, … I was trying to be focused on the matters that I would like…
them to understand, and basically explain them the procedures that they need to
comply with, but the major part of the conversation was just going into jokes and
discussion about football.” 237
6.258 Dr Shadrin did recall that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun delivered some ‘Know Your
Client’ documents, but his memory is that they did so the next day, when he was
engaged in another meeting. 238
6.259 I have addressed the evidence relating to the meeting with Dr Shadrin in some detail
because it is relevant to the question of why Mr Kovtun travelled to London. As I have
set out, one of the explanations that Mr Kovtun has given over time is that he needed
to come to London to do business with Dr Shadrin.
6.260 I regard that assertion as being untenable in the light of the evidence of Dr Shadrin
and his colleagues. There is nothing to suggest that anything was discussed or
undertaken at the CPL offices that day that required Mr Kovtun’s presence at all, far
less his urgent travel from Hamburg. It is also important to recall in this context that
Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun did not need to travel to London at all to meet Dr Shadrin.
As he made clear in his oral evidence, and repeated in his statement dated 24 June
2015, “during 2006 I was a regular visitor to Russia and could quite easily have met
them there”. 239
6.261 I turn now to the telephone call made on Mr Lugovoy’s phone to C2 at 11.33 on the
morning of 1 November.
6.262 It is common ground that this call was in fact made by Mr Kovtun – in his recent
statement he said that he did so because his own phone was out of credit. 240 It is
also common ground that Mr Kovtun and C2 had a discussion about meeting up.
Mr Kovtun said in his recent statement that this conversation in fact took place shortly
after his first call when C2 rang him back. That assertion is not supported by the
telephone schedule, but I do not regard this as a point of any great importance.
6.263 Beyond these facts, there are some important discrepancies in the evidence that I
have received.
235
Shadrin 14/192
236
Shadrin 14/192
237
Shadrin 14/193
238
Shadrin 14/195-196
239
INQ022384 (page 2)
240
INQ021208 (page 11)
161