The Litvinenko Inquiry

The Litvinenko Inquiry
d. The next two relevant entries on the schedule show calls made by Mr Litvinenko
to Mr Lugovoy, one at 2.32pm and one at 2.55pm. These calls may well have
been made whilst Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were at CPL that day, and to that
extent they corroborate Mr Kovtun’s account. That said, there were only two calls
and they were both very short – the first lasted 8 seconds and the second 40
seconds. Moreover, there is good evidence that by that stage the meeting later in
the day had already been arranged, at Mr Lugovoy’s behest
e. A further call, lasting 39 seconds, was made by Mr Lugovoy to Mr Litvinenko
at 3.38pm. That time was a few minutes after Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun had
returned to the Millennium Hotel and a minute or so before Mr Litvinenko left itsu
to walk up to the hotel. This would appear to corroborate Mr Litvinenko’s memory
that Mr Lugovoy rang him during the afternoon to bring the time of the meeting
forward – the occasion when he told Mr Litvinenko, “come quicker, I am waiting
for you”. (See paragraph 6.279 above)
6.281 In summary, it is Mr Litvinenko’s account that is consistent with the objective evidence
of the telephone schedule. The meeting at the Pine Bar on the afternoon of 1 November
was instigated by Mr Lugovoy, not Mr Litvinenko.
6.282 Two questions arise that are worthy of further consideration. First, why have Mr Lugovoy
and Mr Kovtun gone to such lengths to attempt to conceal what might be thought to
be a very mundane piece of information, namely that the meeting was prompted by
Mr Lugovoy and not Mr Litvinenko? And second, is there any significance in the fact
that Mr Lugovoy made the call to Mr Litvinenko suggesting that they meet up that
afternoon only a few minutes after Mr Kovtun had spoken to C2 and discovered that
he was unavailable?
Scaramella/Limarev
6.283 I have already mentioned that, immediately before he went to the Millennium Hotel on
the afternoon of 1 November, Mr Litvinenko met up with Mario Scaramella. They met
by arrangement at Piccadilly Circus and then sat in itsu on Piccadilly for half an hour
before Mr Litvinenko received the “come quicker” call from Mr Lugovoy. I heard oral
evidence about the meeting and the events that had led to it from Mr Scaramella. 260
6.284 Mr Scaramella’s evidence was that he arranged to see Mr Litvinenko on 1 November
because he wanted to pass on to him information that he had received about a
possible threat to Mr Litvinenko’s safety from individuals linked to the Russian security
services. He had been provided with this information by Evgheniy Limarev, from whom
I also heard evidence. I will consider the detail of the information that Mr Scaramella
received from Mr Limarev and its possible veracity in Part 9 of this Report; but in
a nutshell Mr Scaramella said that he had had a series of communications with
Mr Limarev during October about what he understood to be an increasing threat to a
group of individuals on a Russian ‘hitlist’. The ‘targets’ included Anna Politkovskaya,
Mr Scaramella himself, Mr Guzzanti, Mr Berezovsky, Mr Zakayev and Mr Litvinenko.
Mr Scaramella said that Mr Limarev had spoken to him of the possibility that radioactive
poisons might be used against these targets. 261
260
Scaramella 15/86-136
261
Scaramella 15/171-176
166