Left Aleksandr Litvinenko, right: Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy, accused of killing him

  • Litvinenko trial: widow "Putin ordered the murder".

    But the Kremlin criticizes the investigation

  • Putin honors the main accused of Litvinenko's death

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January 21, 2016The operation to kill Aleksandr Litvinenko was "probably authorized" by Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is the conclusion of the British public investigation into the death by poisoning of the former KGB agent which took place on November 23, 2006 in London. There is a "strong probability" that the two killers who killed him were under the orders of the Russian secret service FSB. British Prime Minister David Cameron is tough: it was "a state action", he said, and now London "will tighten its line" against Moscow. 



In the 300-page report edited by Judge Sir Robert Owen it is stated that the two Russian citizens Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun - accused of poisoning the former KGB agent and Putin's opponent by putting radioactive polonium in a teapot at the Millennium bar Mayfair hotel in the heart of London - probably acted under the direction of the FSB, Moscow intelligence, and its boss, Nikolai Patrushev. Traces of the poison were found in the hotels, restaurants and other public places they visited. The two, considered as the main suspects of the murder, have always denied the accusations. Moscow has always refused to extradite them, despite the demands of British justice and after the events of 2006 Lugovoi and Kovtun made a political career in Russia.





(Who was Litvinenko, the spy who knew too much. From Rai Storia)



The reaction of the Kremlin: "British humor"

For the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, the investigation conducted in London on the death of the former KGB spy "perhaps is a joke "and" can probably be attributed to the fine British sense of humor. Peskov, who had already defined the investigation "a pseudo-investigation" capable, however, of damaging and "further poisoning the bilateral relations" between London and Moscow, re-launched, speaking of a probable joke, because it should be considered in his own right. I warn "the fact that a public investigation is based on secret service data, unspecified secret services".



Lugovoi: "absurd" theaccuses him of poisoning Litvinenko

"London does not want to establish the real cause" of his death. So Lugovoi replies to the accusations made by the British investigation. "The allegations against me are absurd," he told Interfax. "The results of the investigation published today once again confirm London's anti-Russian attitude, London's obstinacy and refusal to establish the true cause of Litvinenko's death." Last year, Lugovoi was awarded a medal of honor by Putin for "services rendered to the motherland". 



Widow Litvinenko asks Cameron for "sanctions against Putin"

Penalties and bans on entry to Great Britain for senior Russian leaders, including President "Vladimir Putin and Nikolai Patrushev" himself, former head of the secret services (FSB) and current national security adviser. This is what the widow of Aleksandr Litvinenko, Marina, asks Prime Minister David Cameron. In a hot statement from London, Marina said the British government should "act" at this point, even making public in her opinion the names of all officials believed to be agents of the FSB or other Moscow intelligence agencies serving in Russian diplomatic posts in the United Kingdom.



London freezes the assets of Kovtun and Lugovoi

Meanwhile, the British Minister of the Interior, Theresa May, announced in the House of Commons the freezing of the assets belonging to Dmitri Kovtun and Aleksandr Lugovoi, recalling that an international arrest warrant remains in force against them. May also announced in parliament the summoning of the Russian ambassador to London, in the light of the report on the killing of Litvinenko, to protest against what is called the lack of cooperation of Moscow against the 2 suspected perpetrators and to ask that the role be investigated. of the FSB.