The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 9 | Chapters 1 to 12 | Who directed the killing?
is possible to draw any firm conclusions. It would certainly not be appropriate, in
my view, to conclude that the Russian authorities were deliberately attempting to
undermine the British investigation.
9.176 Third, even if I did make such a finding, it would still be another considerable step to
find that the Russian authorities had acted in this way in order to conceal their own
involvement in Mr Litvinenko’s death. Standing alone, this evidence cannot justify this
conclusion.
Refusal of extradition requests
9.177 Russia has refused requests made by the British authorities to extradite Mr Lugovoy
and Mr Kovtun to face criminal charges in the UK. No inferences can be drawn from
this. Article 61(1) of the Russian constitution provides that, “A citizen of the Russian
Federation may not be deported from Russia or extradited to another State.”
9.178 Moreover, as Professor Service pointedly observed: 74
“It was no surprise that the Russian authorities refused to comply with the British
request for their extradition to stand trial since the UK authorities had turned down
every Russian request to extradite Berezovski and other wanted Russian citizens
to Moscow.”
The careers of Mr Kovtun and Mr Lugovoy since 2006
9.179 Professor Service had this to say about the careers in Russia of Mr Lugovoy and
Mr Kovtun in the years following Mr Litvinenko’s death: 75
“A wall of protection was built around Lugovoi and Kovtun. Although Kovtun did
not exactly avoid public attention, he gave only a few interviews to the print and
broadcast media. His partner Lugovoi by contrast has paraded himself at every
opportunity. He was welcomed into the Liberal Democratic Party and became one
of its successful candidates in the Duma elections of 2007; he appeared on TV
chat shows and has recently been appointed an adviser to a television series
about spies.
The careers of Lugovoi and Kovtun since 2006 seem to me unimaginable without
high-level political approval. The fact that Lugovoi has joined Zhironovski’s Liberal
Democratic Party, moreover, is not a sign of Lugovoi’s alienation from the central
state authorities. It is a party that since the early 1990s has acted as a pseudocritical
part of the tolerated opposition to whoever is President at the time. Lugovoi
is a prominent, officially-respected public figure.”
9.180 Professor Service expanded on these points in the course of his oral evidence. 76 He
emphasised that Mr Lugovoy’s membership of the Liberal Democratic Party did not
mean that he was a political opponent of President Putin in any substantive sense.
Professor Service also drew attention to the importance that President Putin placed
on television as a source of public information and the control that he therefore sought
to exercise over it. Professor Service observed that, in those circumstances, the fact
74
INQ019146 (page 25 paragraph 79)
75
INQ019146 (pages 25-26 paragraphs 79-80)
76
Service 28/51-55; 28/100-102
237