The Litvinenko Inquiry

The Litvinenko Inquiry
5.38 Marina Litvinenko said that she had seen the reduction in Mr Berezovsky’s payments in
2006 as an opportunity for their family to reduce its dependence on him. She said that
Mr Litvinenko had been “a little bit sad, emotional,” but her view was that Mr Litvinenko
was upset at the thought that Mr Berezovsky did not need him anymore, rather than
financial issues. She was very clear that the underlying friendship between her
husband and Mr Berezovsky had not been broken. 21 She agreed with the proposition
that Mr Litvinenko and Mr Berezovsky were close friends until Mr Litvinenko’s death
and added, “I knew these two people have been very special to each other.” 22 When
asked whether she knew anything about Mr Litvinenko blackmailing Mr Berezovsky
in October 2006, she said:
“I don’t believe it because I have no evidence during this time Sasha did like
to blackmail Boris Berezovsky because particularly in October 2006, I didn’t feel
Sasha struggling about money and had any emotional problem at all.” 23
5.39 Mr Goldfarb’s evidence on this issue was broadly consistent with that of Marina
Litvinenko. On the first occasion that he gave evidence, he said that he had not been
aware of any rift between the two men. While Mr Litvinenko had been “a little grouchy”
about the reduction in payments, he would not have described him as upset. He
added that he would have expected Mr Litvinenko to have told him, “if he was really
upset and thought it was unfair”, but that he had never done so. 24
5.40 When Mr Goldfarb returned to give evidence, he said that he did not even suspect that
Mr Berezovsky might have been responsible for Mr Litvinenko’s death. Regarding the
relationship between the two men, he said:
“There was, and it cannot be denied, some sort of a cooling off between them for
a short period before Sasha was killed which was related to the reduction of his
support, but… the support was reduced only marginally because Boris continued
to pay for schooling and for the… house. And Sasha was naturally upset when
his amount – the amount of money was reduced, but of course he expected that
he would… be getting more money elsewhere, and he did not, so he was a little
bit – financial strait, but it never, ever, would even occur to him to kind of confront
Boris about that or accuse him of something, not to mention blackmail, no. So it’s
totally inconceivable.” 25
5.41 Mr Reilly’s evidence on this issue was rather different. He recalled that there had
been “a big row” between Mr Litvinenko and Mr Berezovsky in the late summer of
2006, which had resulted in them not speaking to each other for a time. However, he
said that the row was not about money, but about Mr Berezovsky’s failure to follow
some advice that Mr Litvinenko had given him (and about which Mr Litvinenko had
subsequently been proved correct). He also said that the two men had been reconciled
by October 2006 (that being the time at which Mr Lugovoy claimed that Mr Litvinenko
was planning to blackmail Mr Berezovsky). 26
5.42 Given the allegation of blackmail, it is also noteworthy that Mr Reilly immediately went
on to describe Mr Litvinenko in the following terms:
21
Marina Litvinenko 3/125-129
22
Marina Litvinenko 4/110-111
23
Marina Litvinenko 4/11 lines 11-15
24
Goldfarb 5/102-107
25
Goldfarb 26/2-8
26
Reilly 10/23-26
96