The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 4 | Chapters 1 to 6 | Why would anyone wish to kill Alexander Litvinenko?
A. If you’re talking about the interests of the Russian state in the purest sense of
the word, I myself would have given that order. I’m not talking about Litvinenko,
but about any person who causes serious damage. For example, if I had been
president, I would have ordered the assassination of Saakashvili.
Q. Saakashvili isn’t a Russian citizen, he’s president of the Republic of Georgia.
A. Well, there is another person, Oleg Gordievsky (colonel of the KGB), a friend
of Litvinenko’s, who fled to the UK (in 1985) and was sentenced to death by the
Supreme Court of the USSR. I think that this punishment should be enacted. If
he is caught, he must be brought here and locked up for life. And if someone
has caused the Russian state serious damage, they should be exterminated.
This is my firm belief and the belief of any normal Russian.”
4.74 In February 2007, before either Mr Lugovoy’s press conference or his interview with
El Pais, Mr Gusak, Mr Litvinenko’s former friend and superior officer had given an
interview to the Ekho Moskvy radio station. 70 The interview appears to have been
a follow up to an earlier interview that he had given to the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC). The interviewer asked Mr Gusak: “Tell us, please, you have
described Litvinenko as a traitor and said that he did indeed inflict serious damage
on our country, he revealed his sources of information, and even betrayed several
[undercover] agents. Is that so?” Mr Gusak responded: “The thing is, when Aleksandr
Valterovich [Litvinenko] defected abroad, he naturally handed over the undercover
agents who had been his contacts.” Later in the same interview, Mr Gusak was asked,
“But you believe that under Soviet laws Litvinenko deserved to be executed, right?”
Mr Gusak replied “Well, he did, yes.”
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