The Crime Book

328

O

n 1 November 2006,

44-year-old former Russian

spy Alexander Litvinenko

met with two men from Moscow

at the Millennium Hotel in London.

By the time Litvinenko arrived at

the hotel, at around 3:40pm, the

Russians were already seated

towards the back of the Pine Bar

in the hotel lobby – a black spot in

the hotel’s CCTV coverage.

One of the men, Andrei Lugovoi,

had ordered green tea, and three

empty mugs were placed around

the table. Lugovoi offered the

remaining tea to Litvinenko, who

poured himself half a cup. It was

sugarless and cold, and Litvinenko

swallowed just a few sips before

leaving the rest.

Litvinenko proceeded to talk

briefly with Lugovoi and his

companion, Dmitry Kovtun, about

a possible business venture.

Although he had no way of

knowing it as he left the hotel,

Litvinenko was already a dead

man. He had just consumed

a radioactive poison known as

polonium-210 – the tea had been

laced with it. At this point, not

even the most gifted medical team

in the world could have saved him.

That night Litvinenko felt sick

and began to vomit. He was

admitted to Barnet General

Hospital on 3 November. His

condition rapidly deteriorated,

and Litvinenko was moved to

University College Hospital on

17 November. Initially, his doctors

thought Litvinenko had been

poisoned with thallium, and

Scotland Yard sent detectives to

investigate. Under an armed police

guard, Litvinenko spent his final

days in a series of interviews with

the police, using his detective skills

to solve his own murder.

THE POISONING OF ALEXANDER LITVINENKO

Enemy of the state

A former officer of Russia’s Federal

Security Service, Litvinenko defected

to London after exposing corruption

in President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

In 2000, he received political asylum

in the United Kingdom, where he

was recruited to work for the British

foreign intelligence agency, MI6.

There, Litvinenko also became

one of Putin’s most vocal critics. By

the time Litvinenko met with the

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

London, England

THEME

Espionage

BEFORE

September 1978 After his

defection from Bulgaria in

1969, Georgi Ivanov Markov

is assassinated in London –

stabbed in the leg with an

umbrella point containing ricin.

April 1983 American CIA

agent and spy, Robert Ames, is

killed in the bombing of the US

embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

April 2006 Denis Donaldson,

a volunteer in the Provisional

Irish Republic Army, is killed

by the IRA after he is exposed

as an informant for the police

and MI5.

AFTER

August 2010 MI6 agent

Gareth Williams, is found dead

in suspicious circumstances at

a safe house in London.

If you want some tea, then

there is some left here – you

can have some of this.

Andrei Lugovoi

A defiant Andrei Lugovoi claims his

innocence during a press conference in

Moscow. Still wanted by the British

authorities, Lugovoi is now a deputy

in the Duma, Russia’s lower house.

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329

two men from Moscow, he had

lived in London for six years. He

joined them at the hotel that fateful

afternoon because he was under

the impression that they could

become business partners.

Although Litvinenko felt slightly

suspicious after the meeting, he

did not realize then that Lugovoi

and Kovtun were Russian spies.

Deathbed testimony

On 18 November, two detectives

from the Metropolitan Police

Specialist Crime Unit, Detective

Inspector Brent Hyatt and

Detective Sergeant Chris Hoar,

interviewed Litvinenko in the

critical care unit on the 16th floor

of University College Hospital.

Over the next three days,

Litvinenko participated in 18

interviews, which lasted nearly

nine hours. At times, he was forced

to stop speaking as his condition

grew more painful and serious.

An experienced detective,

Litvinenko became a significant

witness in the case against his

killers. He drew up a list of

suspects, at the top of which were

the Moscow men he met for tea

• Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry
  Kovtun. Their strange meeting at
  the hotel had unnerved Litvinenko.
  After the first four or five hours
  of interviews, the investigation
  began to gain momentum.
  Litvinenko directed detectives
  to critical documents he kept on
  Russian gangs and Putin; he was
  convinced that ultimately the
  Russian president had given
  the order to assassinate him.
  Litvinenko also phoned his wife,
  who located photographs of
  Andrei Lugovoi that Litvinenko
  had at home. Lugovoi became
  Scotland Yard’s prime suspect.
  Litvinenko did not initially
  disclose his status as an MI6
  informant to the police. When Hoar
  and Hyatt enquired about some
  unaccounted time in his rundown
  of the week, Litvinenko was
  unwilling to explain who he had
  met, or why. Instead, he gave the
  detectives the phone number of his
  handler. The handler, “Martin”,
  visited University College Hospital,

See also: Sadamichi Hirasawa 224–25 ■ Harold Shipman 290–91 ■ The Assassination of Rasputin 312–15

ASSASSINATIONS AND POLITICAL PLOTS

Alexander Litvinenko

Born in Russia, Alexander

Litvinenko was drafted into the

Ministry of International Affairs

at 18. In 1986, he was recruited

to the counter-intelligence unit of

Russia’s security agency (KGB).

In 1997, Litvinenko was

promoted to the Federal Security

Service (FSB). While working for

the FSB, Litvinenko discovered

that organized crime and

corruption had penetrated

Russia’s government. He made

numerous attempts to discuss

the corruption problem with

officials, including President

Vladimir Putin. Seeing that his

discussions were fruitless,

however, Litvinenko held an

unauthorized press conference,

in which he accused supervisors

of ordering the assassination

of Russian business tycoons.

Litvinenko was dismissed

from the FSB and arrested for

exceeding the authority of his

position. After he was acquitted

in November 1999, he fled

Russia and was granted asylum

in the UK, where he worked as

a journalist, writer, and MI6

consultant up until his murder.

and began looking into the two

mysterious Russians. MI6’s

findings, whatever they were,

remain classified.

Russia’s secret service – the

KGB and later FSB – has a long

history of poisoning its enemies.

Under Boris Yeltsin’s regime,

Moscow’s secret poison lab had all

but ceased operation, but when

Putin became president, his critics

began to die in strange ways.

Litvinenko knew that, even if he

could be proved responsible, it was

highly unlikely that Putin would be

prosecuted, because of his position

as a world leader. However, he was

hopeful that at least Lugovoi and

Kovtun could be caught and

punished for their actions. Wanting

to get his story out to the world, on

19 November Litvenenko gave

an interview to Sunday Times

journalist David Leppard.

The next day, Litvinenko’s

condition deteriorated rapidly; his

heart rate was irregular and

his organs were failing. As he lay

gravely ill, Litvinenko gave one

final interview to the police. His

death now seemed inevitable. ❯❯

Later on, when I left the hotel,

I was thinking there was

something strange. I had been

feeling, all the time, I knew

that they wanted to kill me.

Alexander Litvinenko

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