The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 9 | Chapters 1 to 12 | Who directed the killing?
was not its thermal power, but rather its neutron flux 39 (a point to which Professor
Dombey had alluded in the course of his oral evidence). 40
9.108 A1 expressed the view that very many research reactors had a sufficient level of
neutron flux to produce 50 micrograms of polonium 210 by means of irradiating bismuth
209. Moreover, she said that the process involved was relatively straightforward. She
stated that, because the bismuth target can be inserted into a reactor core in place
of a fuel rod, “it would be easily possible to insert a bismuth target ... into very many
reactors.” 41
9.109 Witness A1 summarised her opinion on this issue in these terms: 42
“I therefore think that on a technical level, it would be entirely possible for the
quantity of Po-210 under consideration to have been produced in many reactors.
All that would be required is an appropriate bismuth target, access to a suitable
reactor for an appropriate period of time, and suitable facilities with appropriate
radiological protection for the relatively simple chemical process of isolating the
Po-210 from the irradiated bismuth target. While it is of course possible that the
Po-210 was simply diverted from that which is routinely produced at Avangard, I do
not agree with Prof Dombey that that must have been the source of this Po-210.”
9.110 In the further statement that he provided in response to A1’s statement, Professor
Dombey clarified his position. He stated that, although he regarded it as “highly likely”
that the polonium 210 that had been used to kill Mr Litvinenko had been prepared at
the Avangard facility, he accepted that it was “possible to envisage circumstances” in
which it could have been prepared elsewhere. It seems to me that this clarification
of his position by Professor Dombey means that there is no material difference of
opinion on this issue between him and A1. They share the view that the polonium
210 that killed Mr Litvinenko could have been produced at Avangard (and it is fair to
say that Professor Dombey puts the matter considerably higher than that). Crucially,
however, they also both accept that the polonium 210 could in principle have been
made somewhere entirely different, including a research reactor outside Russia.
Conclusion
9.111 My conclusion, for the reasons that I have set out above, is that none of these theories
or lines of evidence relating to the source of the polonium 210 that was used to kill
Mr Litvinenko amount to a secure basis for me to conclude, without more evidence,
that the polonium 210 in question either must have come, or even probably came,
from Russia.
9.112 That does not mean that the fact that polonium 210 was used to poison Mr Litvinenko
is of no significance to the question of responsibility for his death.
9.113 First, the use of polonium 210 is at the very least a strong indicator of state involvement.
That is in part simply because ordinary criminals might have been expected to use a
more straightforward, less sophisticated means of killing. It is also because, on the
evidence, the polonium 210 used to kill Mr Litvinenko must have come from a reactor,
and such reactors are, in general, under state control.
39
INQ022423
40
Dombey 23/33; 23/39-40
41
INQ022423 (page 7 paragraph 30)
42
INQ022423 (page 9 paragraph 37)
225