The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 3 | Chapters 1 to 5 | Alexander Litvinenko
3.136 There is, however, a further related point. It was a recurring feature of the evidence
that I heard from a number of Mr Litvinenko’s friends and associates that during
the time that he was in hospital he told them that he believed that Mr Scaramella
had poisoned him on 1 November, and that he either delayed in telling them, or did
not tell them at all, about his meeting with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun on the same
day. Evidence to this effect was given by Yuri Shvets, 167 Vladimir Bukovsky 168 and
Akhmed Zakayev; 169 and Boris Berezovsky’s witness statement is to a similar effect. 170
3.137 The reluctance on the part of Mr Litvinenko to tell his friends about his meeting with
Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun on the day that he became ill cannot be explained by
his strategy to try to lure the two men back into the jurisdiction, since these were
private conversations with trusted friends. The answer seems to lie in what Mr Shvets
described as Mr Litvinenko’s “wounded professional pride”. He said:
“He was agonised by the understanding that as a professional he failed. … He was
always saying that I can identify my enemy a mile away,… that I am a professional.
But this particular case when it comes to his own life he badly failed.” 171
Mr Zakayev, in a similar vein, explained that Mr Litvinenko, as a former FSB officer,
had advised him on his personal security and had warned him that; “they might
send a person from my past to me, someone who I’d had good relations with… it
[was] that person that the threat would come from”. He said that Mr Litvinenko was
“embarrassed” that, “exactly this scenario… was turned against him.” 172
3.138 These insights are, in my view, convincing. They are also valuable, because they
suggest that Mr Litvinenko’s accounts of his meetings with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun
– in particular, perhaps, his description of their meeting on 1 November – must be
approached with some caution. It may be that these accounts contain some infelicities,
added by Mr Litvinenko in an attempt to salve his wounded pride.
3.139 If the contemporaneous documents give rise to some uncertainty as to whom
Mr Litvinenko believed had poisoned him, there is no ambiguity as to whom he
thought bore ultimate responsibility. Mr Berezovsky recalled that when he visited him
in hospital Mr Litvinenko “insisted that it was a direct order of Putin”, although at that
stage Mr Berezovsky disagreed with him. 173 Several days later, towards the end of his
interviews with DI Hyatt, Mr Litvinenko stated:
“I have no doubt whatsoever that this was done by the Russian Secret Services.
Having knowledge of the system I know that the order about such a killing of a
citizen of another country on its territory, especially if it [is] something to do with
Great Britain could have been given by only one person.”
When DI Hyatt asked who that person was, Mr Litvinenko replied, “That person is the
President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin”. 174 A few days later, as we shall
see, Mr Litvinenko was to make a similar accusation in his final statement, which was
published and widely circulated after his death.
167
Shvets 24/89-93
168
Bukovsky 26/100-101
169
Zakayev 26/153-154
170
Berezovsky 25/20-21
171
Shvets 24/92-93
172
Zakayev 26/156-157
173
Berezovsky 25/19-20
174
INQ016642 (page 5)
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