The Litvinenko Inquiry

The Litvinenko Inquiry
Her recollection was that when she went to the hospital for this purpose, a doctor
asked her to pull out some of Mr Litvinenko’s hair for testing, and gave them a clear
plastic bag to fill for this purpose. She remembered pulling out Mr Litvinenko’s hair
where she could and filling the bag, then shaving the rest of his head. She said she
gave the bag to Mrs Litvinenko. 125 Mrs Litvinenko did not recall being directed by
staff to fill the bag, but she did remember filling the bag with hair and putting it on
Mr Litvinenko’s bedside table with his other possessions.
3.122 To complete this part of the story, I also heard evidence from a nurse at UCH named
Gemma Trout. 126 Ms Trout stated that she found a plastic bag of hair in the room
on her ward that Mr Litvinenko had occupied before being moved to intensive care.
She assumed that it was his. Her description of the bag broadly matched that given
by Marina Litvinenko and Mrs Michenina. Ms Trout’s evidence tallies with that of
Marina Litvinenko, who remembered the bag of hair being transferred to UCH, and
seeing it on Mr Litvinenko’s bedside table there. 127 Ms Trout gave the bag to the
police. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) tests performed much later demonstrated to an
extremely high degree of likelihood that the hair in the bag was Mr Litvinenko’s. 128
3.123 As we shall see, these hair samples were of some importance to the scientific
investigations that were subsequently carried out.
Visitors
3.124 Marina Litvinenko stated in evidence that she had visited Mr Litvinenko every day that
he was in hospital, often taking Anatoly with her. 129 Mr Zakayev, too, said that he had
visited every day. 130
3.125 Both Mr Goldfarb and Mr Berezovsky were out of the country when Mr Litvinenko
was taken ill. Mr Goldfarb stated that he had been in Paris since 9 November. He
said that he returned to London on 13 November and first visited Mr Litvinenko on
15 November. He appears thereafter to have visited Mr Litvinenko on a more or less
daily basis. 131
3.126 Mr Berezovsky was in South Africa, having flown there (as we shall see) on the
evening of 1 November. The evidence that he gave in his police witness statement
was that he returned to the UK on 16 or 17 November and first visited Mr Litvinenko
at Barnet Hospital on the day after he arrived back. 132 This account tallies with
Marina Litvinenko’s evidence. She remembered him visiting for the first time on
17 November. 133 Mr Berezovsky told the police that he then visited Mr Litvinenko
daily. 134
125
Michenina 18/89-93
126
Trout 18/75-83
127
Marina Litvinenko 4/64-65
128
Mascall 24/10-13
129
Marina Litvinenko 4/56 lines 5-10
130
Zakayev 26/153 lines 10-11
131
Goldfarb 5/133-145
132
Berezovsky 25/19
133
Marina Litvinenko 4/60-61
134
Berezovsky 25/19 lines 20-21
36