Alexander Litvinenko

**The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko**

Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the FSB (*Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti*) the
Russian Federal Security Service and the KGB (*Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti*) the Russian Committee for
State Security, who fled from court prosecution in Russia and received
political asylum in the United Kingdom. According to his wife and father, he
was working for MI6 and MI5 after receiving the asylum. In his books, *Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within*
and *Lubyanka Criminal Group*,
Litvinenko described Russian president Vladimir Putin's rise to power as a *coup d'état* organised by the FSB. He
alleged that a key element of the FSB's strategy was to frighten Russians by
bombing apartment buildings in Moscow and other Russian cities. He accused
Russian secret services of having arranged the Moscow theatre hostage crisis,
through their Chechen agent provocateur, and having organised the 1999 Armenian
parliament shooting. He also stated that terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri was under
FSB control when he visited Russia in 1997. Whilst in the UK, Litvinenko continued
to support the Russian oligarch-in-exile, Boris Berezovsky, in his media
campaign against the Russian government.

On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill. Earlier
that day he had met two former KGB officers, Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun.
Lugovoy is a former bodyguard of Russian ex-Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar (also
reportedly poisoned in November 2006) and former chief of security for the
Russian TV channel ORT. Kovtun is now a businessman. Litvinenko had also had
lunch at Itsu, a sushi restaurant on Piccadilly in London, with an Italian
officer and "nuclear expert", Mario Scaramella, to whom he reportedly
made allegations regarding Romano Prodi's connections with the KGB. Scaramella,
attached to the Mitrokhin Commission investigating KGB penetration of Italian
politics, claimed to have information on the death of Anna Politkovskaya, 48, a
journalist who was killed at her Moscow apartment in October 2006. He passed
Litvinenko papers supposedly concerning her fate. On 20 November, it was
reported that Scaramella had gone into hiding and feared for his life.

For several days after 1 November, Litvinenko experienced
severe diarrhea and vomiting. At one point, he could not walk without
assistance. As the pain intensified, Litvinenko asked his wife to call an ambulance
for assistance. For several weeks, Litvinenko's condition worsened as doctors
searched for the cause of the illness. Surrounded by friends, Litvinenko became
physically weak, and spent periods unconscious. A photograph was taken of
Litvinenko on his deathbed and released to the public. "I want the world
to see what they did to me," Litvinenko said.

Subsequent investigations by British authorities into the
circumstances of Litvinenko's death led to serious diplomatic tensions between
the British and Russian governments. During the 2014–2015 trial a Scotland Yard
representative witnessed that "the evidence suggests that the only
credible explanation is in one way or another the Russian state is involved in
Litvinenko's murder". Another witness stated that Dmitry Kovtun has been
speaking openly about the plan to kill Litvinenko that was intended to "set
an example" as a punishment for a "traitor". The main suspect in
the case, a former officer of the Russian Federal Protective Service (FSO),
Andrey Lugovoy, remains in Russia. As a member of the Duma, he now enjoys
immunity from prosecution. Before he was elected to the Duma, the British
government tried to extradite him without success.

At the same time, Litvinenko's father, now residing in
Italy, believes Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Goldfarb were behind the murder.
Berezovsky was found dead at his home in England on 23 March 2013.

Just two weeks before his death, Litvinenko accused Putin of
ordering the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya.

**Poison**
**Shortly after his death, the UK's Health Protection Agency (HPA) stated**
that tests had established that Litvinenko had significant amounts of the
radionuclide Polonium-210 [210Po] in his body. British and US
government sources both said the use of [210Po] as a poison had
never been documented before, and this was probably the first time a person has
been tested for the presence of [210Po] in their body. The poison
was in Litvinenko's teacup; which he had just drunk tea out of. People who had
contact with Litvinenko may also have been exposed to radiation.

Polonium was identified only after Litvinenko's death, on 23
November. Doctors and Scotland Yard investigators could not detect Polonium
earlier because it does not emit gamma rays, which are encountered with most
radioactive isotopes. Unlike most common radiation sources, Polonium-210 emits
only alpha particles that do not penetrate even a sheet of paper or the
epidermis of human skin, thus being invisible to normal radiation detectors in
this case. Hospitals only have equipment to detect gamma rays. Both gamma rays
and alpha particles are classified as ionizing radiation which can cause
radiation damage. An alpha-emitting substance can cause significant damage only
if ingested or inhaled. Litvinenko was tested for alpha-emitters using special
equipment only hours before his death.

**Po-210 concentration**
in the body of Litvinenko

**The symptoms seen in Litvinenko appeared consistent with an administered**
activity of approximately 2 GBq (50 mCi) which corresponds to about 10
micrograms of [210Po]. That is 200 times the median lethal dose of
around 238 μCi or 50 nanograms in the case of ingestion.

**Thallium – initial hypothesis**
**Scotland Yard initially investigated claims that Litvinenko was poisoned**
with Thallium. It was reported that early tests appeared to confirm the
presence of the poison. Among the distinctive effects of Thallium poisoning are
hair loss and damage to peripheral nerves, and a photograph of Litvinenko in
hospital, released to the media on his behalf, indeed showed his hair to have
fallen out. Litvinenko attributed his initial survival to his cardiovascular
fitness and swift medical treatment. It was later suggested a radioactive isotope
of Thallium might have been used to poison Litvinenko. Dr. Amit Nathwani, one
of Litvinenko's physicians, said "His symptoms are slightly odd for Thallium
poisoning, and the chemical levels of Thallium we were able to detect are not
the kind of levels you'd see in toxicity." Litvinenko's condition
deteriorated, and he was moved into intensive care on 20 November. Hours before
his death, three unidentified circular-shaped objects were found in his stomach
via an X-ray scan. It is thought these objects were almost certainly shadows
caused by the presence of Prussian blue, the treatment he had been given for Thallium
poisoning.

**Death and last statement**

**Grave of Alexander**
Litvinenko at Highgate Cemetery

**Late on 22 November, Litvinenko's heart failed; the official time of death**
was 9:21 pm at University College Hospital in London.

The autopsy took place on 1 December. Litvinenko had
ingested Polonium-210. Mario Scaramella, who had eaten with Litvinenko,
reported that doctors had told him the body had five times the lethal dose of Polonium-210.
Litvinenko's funeral took place on 7 December at the Central London mosque,
after which his body was buried at Highgate Cemetery in North London.

On 25 November, an article attributed to Litvinenko was
published by the Mail on Sunday On-line entitled *Why I believe Putin wanted me dead...*

**Investigation**

**Initial steps**
**Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service Terrorism Unit has been**
investigating the poisoning and death. The head of the Counter-Terrorism Unit,
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, stated the police "will trace
possible witnesses, examine Mr. Litvinenko's movements at relevant times,
including when he first became ill and identify people he may have met. There
will also be an extensive examination of CCTV footage." The United Kingdom
Government’s COBRA committee met to discuss the investigation. Richard Kolko
from the United States FBI stated "When requested by other nations, we
provide assistance" – referring to the FBI now joining the investigation
for their expertise on radioactive weapons. The Metropolitan Police announced
on 6 December 2006 that it was treating Litvinenko's death as murder. Interpol
has also joined the investigation, providing "speedy exchange of
information" between British, Russian and German police.

**Polonium trails**
**Detectives traced three distinct polonium trails in and out of London. The**
trails were left by Litvinenko, Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun. The patterns
and levels of radioactivity they left behind suggested that Litvinenko ingested
Polonium, whereas Lugovoy and Kovtun handled it directly. The human body
dilutes Polonium before excreting it in sweat, which results in a reduced
radioactivity level. There were also traces of [210Po] found at the
Hey Jo/Abracadabra bar, Dar Marrakesh restaurant, and Lambeth-Mercedes taxis.

The poisoning of Litvinenko took place at around 5 pm of 1
November in the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square. The bus he travelled in
to the hotel had no signs of radioactivity – but large amounts had been
detected at the hotel.] Polonium was subsequently found in a fourth-floor room
and in a cup in the Pine Bar at the hotel. After the Millennium bar, Litvinenko
stopped at the office of Boris Berezovsky. He used a fax machine, where the
radioactivity was found later. At 6 pm Akhmed Zakayev picked Litvinenko up and
brought him home to Muswell Hill. The amount of radioactivity left by
Litvinenko in the car was so significant, the car was rendered unusable.
Everything that he touched at home during the next three days was contaminated.
His family was unable to return to the house even six months later. His wife
was tested positive for ingesting Polonium but did not leave a secondary trail
behind her. This suggested that anyone who left a trail could not have picked
up the Polonium from Litvinenko (possibly, including Lugovoy and Kovtun).

Besides Litvinenko, only two people left the Polonium
trails: Lugovoy and Kovtun who were school friends and worked previously for
Russian intelligence in the KGB and the GRU respectively. These people handled
the radioactive material directly and did not ingest it, because they left more
significant traces of Polonium than Litvinenko.

Lugovoy and Kovtun met Litvinenko in the Millennium hotel
bar twice, on 1 November (when the poisoning took place), and earlier, on 16
October. Trails left by Lugovoy and Kovtun started on 16 October, in the same
sushi bar where Litvinenko was poisoned later, but at a different table. It was
assumed that their first meeting with Litvinenko was either a rehearsal of the
future poisoning, or an unsuccessful attempt of the poisoning.

Traces left by Lugovoy were also found in the office of
Berezovsky that he visited on 31 October, a day before his second meeting with
Litvinenko. Traces left by Kovtun were found in Hamburg, Germany. He left them
on his way to London on 28 October. The traces were found in passenger jets
BA875 and BA873 from Moscow to Heathrow on 25 and 31 October, as well as
flights BA872 and BA874 from Heathrow to Moscow on 28 October and 3 November.

Andrey Lugovoy has said he flew from London to Moscow on a 3
November flight. He stated he arrived in London on 31 October to attend the
football match between Arsenal and CSKA Moscow on 1 November. When the news
broke that a radioactive substance had been used to murder Litvinenko, a team
of scientists rushed to find out how far the contamination had spread. It led
them on a trail involving hundreds of people and dozens of locations.

British Airways later published a list of 221 flights of the
contaminated aircraft, involving around 33,000 passengers, and advised those
potentially affected to contact the UK Department of Health for help. On 5
December they issued an email to all of their customers, informing them that
the aircraft had all been declared safe by the UK's Health Protection Agency
and would be re-entering service.

**British extradition**
request

**British authorities investigated the death and it was reported on 1**
December that scientists at the Atomic Weapons Establishment had traced the
source of the Polonium to a nuclear power plant in Russia. On 3 December, reports
stated that Britain had demanded the right to speak to at least five Russians
implicated in Litvinenko's death, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
asserted that Moscow was willing to answer "concrete questions."
Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika said on Tuesday, 5 December that any
Russian citizen who may be charged in the poisoning will be tried in Russia,
not Britain. Moreover, Chaika stated that UK detectives may ask questions to
Russian citizens only in the presence of Russian prosecutors.

On 28 May 2007 the British Foreign Office submitted a formal
request to the Russian Government for the extradition of Andrey Lugovoy to the
UK to face criminal charges relating to Litvinenko's murder.

**Extradition declined**
**The Russian General Prosecutor's Office declined to extradite Lugovoy,**
citing that extradition of citizens is not allowed under the Russian
constitution (Article 61 of the Constitution of Russia). Russian authorities
later said that Britain has not handed over any evidence against Lugovoy.
Professor Daniel Tarschys, former Secretary General of the Council of Europe,
commented that the Russian Constitution actually "opens the door" for
the extradition, and Russia ratified three international treaties on
extradition (on 10 December 1999); namely, the European Convention on
Extradition and two Additional Protocols to it. Yury Fedotov, Ambassador of the
Russian Federation, pointed out that when the Russian Federation ratified the
European Convention on Extradition it entered a declaration concerning Article
6 in these terms: "The Russian Federation declares that in accordance with
Article 61 (part 1) of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, a citizen of
the Russian Federation may not be extradited to another state. ”The same protections
are extended to the citizens of France and Germany, both of which refuse to
extradite their citizens.

**BBC programme**
**On 7 July 2008, a British security source told the BBC's Newsnight**
programme: "We very strongly believe the Litvinenko case to have had some
state involvement. There are very strong indications." The British
government claimed that no intelligence or security officials were authorised
to comment on the case.

**Possibly related**
events

**On 2 March 2007, Paul Joyal, a former director of security for the U.S.**
Senate intelligence committee, who the previous weekend alleged on national
television that the Kremlin was involved in the poisoning of Litvinenko, was
shot near his Maryland home. An FBI spokesman said the agency was "assisting"
the police investigation into the shooting. Police would not confirm details of
the shooting or of the condition of Joyal. A person familiar with the case said
he was in critical condition in hospital. It was reported that while there were
no indications that the shooting was linked to the Litvinenko case, it is
unusual for the FBI to get involved in a local shooting incident. A person
familiar with the situation said NBC had hired bodyguards for some of the
journalists involved in the program.

**Polonium-210**

**Sources and**
production of Polonium

**A freelance killer would probably not be able to manufacture Polonium from**
commercially available products in the amounts used for Litvinenko's poisoning,
because more than microscopic amounts of Polonium can only be produced in
state-regulated nuclear reactors.

Ninety seven percent of the world's legal Polonium-210 [210Po]
production occurs in Russia in RBMK reactors. About 85 grams (450,000 Ci) are
produced by Russia annually. According to Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of
Russia's state atomic energy agency, RosAtom, all of it goes to U.S. companies
through a single authorized supplier. The production of polonium starts from
bombardment of Bismuth (209Bi) with neutrons at the Ozersk nuclear
reactor, near the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia. The product is then
transferred to the Avangard Electromechanical Plant in the closed city of
Sarov. This of course does not exclude the possibility that the Polonium that
killed Litvinenko was imported by a licensed commercial distributor, but no
one—including the Russian government—has proposed that this is likely,
particularly in regard to the radiation detected on the British Airways
passenger jets travelling between Moscow and London. Russian investigators have
said they could not identify the source of Polonium.

Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138 days and decays to the
stable daughter isotope of lead, 206Pb. Therefore the source is reduced to
about one sixteenth of its original radioactivity about 18 months after production.
By measuring the proportion of Polonium and lead in a sample, one can establish
the production date of Polonium. The analysis of impurities in the Polonium (a
kind of "finger print") allows identification of the place of
production. It is assumed by Litvinenko's wife and his close confidant that
British investigators were able to identify the place and time of production of
Polonium used to poison Litvinenko, but their findings remain unpublished.

**Possible motivation**
for using Polonium-210

**Philip Walker, professor of physics at the University of Surrey said:**
"This seems to have been a substance carefully chosen for its ability to
be hard to detect in a person who has ingested it." Oleg Gordievsky, the
most senior KGB agent ever to defect to Britain, made a similar comment that
Litvinenko's assassination was carefully prepared and rehearsed by Russian
secret services, but the poisoners were unaware that technology existed to
detect traces left by Polonium-210: "Did you know that Polonium-210 leaves
traces? I didn’t. And no one did. ...what they didn’t know was that this
equipment, this technology exists in the West – they didn’t know that, and that
was where they miscalculated."

Nick Priest, a nuclear scientist and expert on Polonium who
has worked at most of Russia's nuclear research facilities, says that although
the execution of the plot was a "bout of stupidity", the choice of
Polonium was a "stroke of genius". He says: "the choice of
poison was genius in that Polonium, carried in a vial in water, can be carried
in a pocket through airport screening devices without setting off any
alarms", adding, "Once administered, the Polonium creates symptoms
that don't suggest poison for days, allowing time for the perpetrator to make a
getaway." Priest asserts that "whoever did it was probably not an
expert in radiation protection, so they probably didn't realize how much
contamination you can get just by opening the top (of the vial) and closing it
again. With the right equipment, you can detect just one count per
second".

Filmmaker and friend of Litvinenko, Andrei Nekrasov, has
suggested that the poison was "sadistically designed to trigger a slow,
tortuous and spectacular demise". Expert on Russia Paul Joyal suggested
that "A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out
against the Kremlin.... If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we
will find you, and we will silence you, in the most horrible way
possible".

**Theories**
**Many theories regarding the Litvinenko poisoning circulated after his**
death. Circumstances led to the suspicion that he was killed by the Russian
secret service. Viktor Ilyukhin, a deputy chairman of the Russian Parliament's
security committee for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, said that
he "can’t exclude that possibility" He apparently referred to a
recent Russian counter-terrorism law that gives the President the right to
order such actions. An investigator of the Russian apartment bombings, Mikhail
Trepashkin wrote in a letter from prison that an FSB team had organised in 2002
to kill Litvinenko. He also reported FSB plans to kill relatives of Litvinenko
in Moscow in 2002, although these have not been carried out. State Duma member
Sergei Abeltsev commented on 24 November 2006: said: "The deserved
punishment reached the traitor. I am confident that this terrible death will be
a serious warning to traitors of all colors, wherever they are located: In
Russia, they do not pardon treachery. I would recommend citizen Berezovsky to
avoid any food at the commemoration for his accomplice Litvinenko."

Many publications in Russian media suggested that the death
of Litvinenko was connected to Boris Berezovsky. Former FSB chief Nikolay
Kovalyov, for whom Litvinenko worked, said that the incident "looks like
[the] hand of Berezovsky. I am sure that no kind of intelligence services
participated." This involvement of Berezovsky was alleged by numerous
Russian television shows.

An explanation put forward by the Russian Government
appeared to be that the deaths of Litvinenko and Politkovskaya were intended to
embarrass President Putin. Other theories included involvement of rogue FSB
members or suggestions that Litvinenko was killed because of his research of
certain Russian corporations or state officials, or as a political intrigue to
undermine president Putin.

**Suspects**

**Andrey Lugovoy**
**A former Federal Protective Service of Russia officer and millionaire who**
met with Litvinenko on the day he fell ill (1 November). He had visited London
at least three times in the month before Litvinenko's death and met with the
victim four times. Traces of polonium-210 have been discovered in all three
hotels where Lugovoy stayed after flying to London on 16 October, and in the
Pescatori restaurant in Dover Street, Mayfair, where Lugovoy is understood to
have dined before 1 November; and aboard two aircraft on which he had
travelled. He has declined to say whether he had been contaminated with
polonium-210. The Crown Prosecution Service has charged him with murder and has
sent an extradition request to Russia that includes a summary of the evidence,
but the only third party to have seen the extradition request, American
journalist Edward Epstein, has described the substantiation as
"embarrassingly thin".

**Dmitry Kovtun**
**A Russian businessman and ex-KGB agent who met Litvinenko in London first**
in mid-October and then on 1 November, the day Litvinenko fell ill. On 7
December Kovtun was hospitalized, with some sources initially reporting him to
be in coma. On 9 December, German police found traces of radiation at a Hamburg
flat used by Kovtun. The following day, 10 December, German investigators
identified the detected material as polonium-210 and clarified that the
substance was found where Kovtun had slept the night before departing for
London. British police also report having detected polonium on the plane in
which Kovtun travelled from Moscow. Three other points in Hamburg were
identified as contaminated with the same substance. On 12 December Kovtun told
Russia's Channel One TV that his "health was improving".

Kovtun was under investigation by German detectives for
suspected plutonium smuggling into Germany in October. Germany dropped the case
against Kovtun on November 2009.

**Vyacheslav Sokolenko**
**A business partner of Andrey Lugovoy.**

**Vladislav**
**The Times stated that the police have identified the man they believe may**
have poisoned Litvinenko with a fatal polonium dose in a cup of tea on the
fourth-floor room at the Millennium Hotel to discuss a business deal with
Dmitry Kovtun and Andrey Lugovoy before going to the bar. These three men were
joined in the room later by the mystery figure who was introduced as Vladislav,
a man, who could help Litvinenko win a lucrative contract with a Moscow-based
private security firm.

Vladislav is said to have arrived in London from Hamburg on
1 November on the same flight as Dmitry Kovtun. His image is recorded by
security cameras at Heathrow airport on arrival. He is described as being in
his early 30s, tall, strong, with short black hair and Central Asian features.
Oleg Gordievsky, an ex-KGB agent, has said that this man was believed to have
used a Lithuanian or Slovak passport, and that he left the country using
another EU passport. He has also said Vladislav started his preparations in early
2006, "sometime between February and April" and that he
"travelled to London, walked everywhere, and studied everything."

Businessman and politician Boris Berezovsky said in a police
interview that "Sasha mentioned some person who he met at Millennium Hotel",
but would not "remember whether [his name] was Vladimir or
Vyacheslav." Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb writes that according to
Litvinenko, "Lugovoy brought along a man whom [Litvinenko] had never seen
before and who had 'the eyes of a killer.'"

**Igor the Assassin**
**The code name for a former KGB assassin. He is said to be a former Spetznaz**
officer born in 1960 who is a Judo master and walks with a slight limp. He
allegedly speaks perfect English and Portuguese and may be the same person who
served Litvinenko tea in the London hotel room.

**Other persons related**
to the case

**Yegor Gaidar**
**The sudden illness of Yegor Gaidar in Ireland on 24 November 2006, the day**
of Litvinenko's death, has been linked to his visit to the restaurant where
polonium was present and is being investigated as part of the overall
investigation in the UK and Ireland. Other observers noted he was probably
poisoned after drinking a strange-tasting cup of tea. Gaidar was taken to
hospital; doctors said his condition is not life-threatening and that he will
recover. This incident was similar to the poisoning of Anna Politkovskaya on a
flight to Beslan. After poisoning, Gaidar claimed that it was enemies of
Kremlin who tried to poison him.

**Mario Scaramella**
**The United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency (HPA) announced that**
significant quantities of Polonium-210 had been found in Mario Scaramella
although his health was found to be normal. He has been admitted to hospital
for tests and monitoring. Doctors say that Scaramella was exposed to a much
lower level of Polonium-210 than Litvinenko had been exposed to, and that preliminary
tests found "no evidence of radiation toxicity". According to the 6
pm Channel 4 (9 December 2006) news the intake of Polonium he suffered will
only result in a dose of 1 mSv. This will lead to a 1 in 20000 chance of
cancer. According to The Independent, Scaramella alleged that Litvinenko was
involved in smuggling radioactive material to Zürich in 2000.

**Boris Volodarsky**
**Boris Volodarsky, a KGB defector residing in London, stated that Evgeni**
Limarev, another former KGB officer residing in France, continued collaboration
with FSB, infiltrated Litvinenko's and Scaramella's circles of trust and
misinformed the latter.

**Igor Ponomarev**
**Igor Ponomarev was a Russian diplomat whose death was named a possible**
murder by Paolo Guzzanti.

**Marina Litvinenko**
**UK reports state Litvinenko's widow tested positive for Polonium, though**
she is not seriously ill. The Ashdown Park hotel in Sussex has been evacuated
as a precaution, possibly to do with Scaramella's previous visit there.
According to the 6 pm Channel 4 (9 December 2006) news the intake of Polonium
she suffered will only result in a dose of 100 mSv. This will lead to a 1 in
200 chance of cancer.

**Akhmed Zakayev**
**The forensic investigation also includes the silver Mercedes by**
Litvinenko's home believed to be owned by his close friend and neighbour Akhmed
Zakayev, then foreign minister of the separatist government in exile of
Ichkeria. Reports now state that traces of radioactive material were found in
the vehicle.

**British Police**
**Two London Metropolitan Police officers tested positive for [210Po]**
poisoning.

**Bar staff**
**Some of the bar staff at the hotel where the polonium contaminated teacup**
was found were discovered to have suffered an intake of Polonium (dose in the
range of 10s of mSv). These people include Norberto Andrade, the head barman of
the bar and a long-time (27 years) worker at the hotel. He has described the
situation thus:

"When I was delivering gin and tonic to the table, I
was obstructed. I couldn't see what was happening, but it seemed very
deliberate to create a distraction. It made it difficult to put the drink
down."

"It was the only moment when the situation seemed
unfriendly and something went on at that point. I think the Polonium was
sprayed into the teapot. There was contamination found on the picture above
where Mr Litvinenko had been sitting and all over the table, chair and floor,
so it must have been a spray."

"When I poured the remains of the teapot into the sink,
the tea looked more yellow than usual and was thicker – it looked gooey."

"I scooped it out of the sink and threw it into the
bin. I was so lucky I didn't put my fingers into my mouth, or scratch my eye as
I could have got this poison inside me."

**Chronology and Background**
History

**7 June 1994**: A
remote-controlled bomb detonated aiming at chauffeured Mercedes 600 with
oligarch Boris Berezovsky and his bodyguard in the rear seat. The driver died
but Berezovsky left the car unscathed. Litvinenko, then with the
organized-crime unit of the FSB, was an investigating officer of the
assassination attempt. The case was never solved, but it was at this point that
Litvinenko befriended Berezovsky.

**17 November 1998**:
At a time that Vladimir Putin was the head of the FSB, five officers including
Lieutenant-Colonel Litvinenko accuse the Director of the Directorate for the
Analysis of Criminal Organizations Major-General Eugeny Hoholkhov and his
deputy, 1st Rank Captain Alexander Kamishnikov, of ordering them to assassinate
Boris Berezovsky in November 1997.

**2006**

**October 2006**

**7 October**: The
Russian journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya is shot in Moscow.

**16 October**:
Andrey Lugovoy flies to London.

**16–18 October**:
Former KGB agent Dmitry Kovtun visits London, during which time he eats two
meals with Litvinenko, one of them at the Itsu sushi bar.

**17 October**:
Litvinenko visits "Risc Management", a security firm in Cavendish
Place, with Lugovoy and Kovtun.

**19 October**:
Litvinenko accuses President Putin of the Politkovskaya murder.

**28 October**:
Dmitry Kovtun arrived in Hamburg, Germany from Moscow on an Aeroflot flight.
Later German police discovered that the passenger seat of the car that picked
him up at an airport was contaminated with Polonium-210.

**31 October**:
Dmitry Kovtun comes to London from Hamburg, Germany. German police found that
his ex-wife's apartment in Hamburg was contaminated with Polonium-210.

**November 2006**

**1 November**: Just
after 3 pm, at the Itsu sushi restaurant on Picadilly, Litvinenko meets the
Italian security expert Mario Scaramella, who hands alleged evidence to him
concerning the murder of Politkovskaya. Around 4:15 pm, he comes to the office
of Boris Berezovsky to copy the papers Scaramella had given him and hand them
to Berezovsky. Around 5 pm he meets with the former KGB agents Andrey Lugovoy,
Dmitry Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko in the Millennium Hotel in London. He
later becomes ill.

**3 November**:
Litvinenko is brought into Barnet General Hospital.

**11 November**:
Litvinenko tells the BBC he was poisoned and is in very bad condition.

**17 November**:
Litvinenko is moved to University College Hospital and placed under armed
guard.

**19 November**:
Reports emerge that Litvinenko has been poisoned with Thallium, a chemical
element used in the past as a rat poison.

**20 November**:
Litvinenko is moved to the Intensive Care Unit. The police take statements from
people with close relation to Litvinenko. A Kremlin speaker denies the Russian
government is involved in the poisoning.

**22 November**: The
hospital announces that Litvinenko's condition has worsened substantially.

**23 November**: 9:21
pm: Litvinenko dies.

**24 November**:
Litvinenko's dictated deathbed statement is published. He accuses President
Vladimir Putin of being responsible for his death. The Kremlin rejects the
accusation. The HPA announces that significant amounts of Polonium-210 have
been found in Litvinenko's body. Traces of the same substance are also found at
Litvinenko's house in North London, at Itsu and at the Millennium Hotel.

**24 November**:
Sergei Abeltsev, State Duma member from the LDPR, in his Duma address he
commented on the death of Litvinenko with the following words: The deserved
punishment reached the traitor. I am sure his terrible death will be a warning
to all the traitors that in Russia the treason is not to be forgiven. I would
recommend to citizen Berezovsky to avoid any food at the commemoration for his
crime accomplice Litvinenko.

**24 November**: The
British police state they are investigating the death as a possible poisoning.

**28 November**:
Scotland Yard announces that traces of Polonium-210 have been found in seven
different places in London. Among them, an office of the Russian billionaire
Boris Berezovsky, an avowed opponent of Putin.

**29 November**: The
HPA announces screening of the nurses and physicians who treated Litvinenko.
The authorities find traces of a radioactive substance on board British Airways
planes.

**30 November**:
Polonium-210 traces are found on a number of other planes, most of them going
to Moscow.

**December 2006**

**1 December**: An
autopsy is performed on the body of Litvinenko. Toxicology results from Mr
Litvinenko's post-mortem examination revealed two "spikes" of
radiation poisoning, suggesting he received two separate doses. Scaramella
tests positive for Polonium-210 and is admitted into a hospital. Litvinenko's
widow also tests positive for Polonium-210, but was not sent to the hospital
for treatment.

**2 December**:
Scotland Yard's counter-terrorist unit have questioned Yuri Shvets, a former
KGB spy who emigrated to the United States in 1993. He was questioned as a
witness in Washington in the presence of FBI officers. Shvets claimed that he
has a "lead that can explain what happened".

**6 December**:
Scotland Yard announced that it is treating his death as a murder.

**7 December**:
Confused reports state that Dmitry Kovtun was hospitalized, the reason has not
yet been made clear.

**7 December**:
Russian Office of the Prosecutor General has opened a criminal case over
poisoning of Litvinenko and Kovtun by the articles "Murder committed in a
way endangering the general public" (убийство, совершенное общеопасным
способом) and "Attempted murder of two or more persons committed in a way
endangering the general public".

**8 December**:
Kovtun is reported to be in coma.

**9 December**:
German police find traces of radiation at Hamburg flat used by Kovtun.

**9 December**: UK
police identify a single cup at the Pines Bar in the Millennium Hotel in
Mayfair which was almost certainly the one used to administer the poison.

**11 December**:
Andrey Lugovoy is interrogated in Moscow by UK Scotland Yard and General
Procurator's office of the Russian Federation. He refuses to reveal any
information concerning the interrogation.

**12 December**:
Dmitry Kovtun tells a Russian TV station that his "health [is]
improving".

**24 December**:
Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples on his return from London, on
apparently unrelated charges.

**27 December**:
Prosecutor General of Russia Yury Chaika accused Leonid Nevzlin, a former Vice
President of Yukos, exiled in Israel and wanted by Russian authorities for a
long time, of involvement in the poisoning, a charge dismissed by the latter as
a nonsense.

**2007**

**February 2007**

**5 February**: Boris
Berezovsky told the BBC that on his deathbed, Litvinenko said that Lugovoy was
responsible for his poisoning.

**6 February**: The
text of a letter written by Litvinenko's widow on 31 January to Putin,
demanding that Putin work with British authorities on solving the case, was
released.

**8 February 2007**:
Update to HPA (Health Protection Agency) investigation of polonium 210
incident.

**May 2007**

**21 May**: Sir Ken
Macdonald QC (Director of Public Prosecutions of England and Wales ) say that
Lugovoy, should face trial for the "grave crime" of murdering
Litvinenko.

**22 May**: Macdonald
announces that Britain will seek extradition of Lugovoy and attempt to charge
him with murdering Litvinenko. The Russian government states that they will not
allow the extradition of any Russian citizens.

**28 May**: The
British Foreign Office formally submits a request to the Russian Government for
the extradition of Lugovoy to the UK to face criminal charges.

The Constitution of Russia forbids extradition of Russian
citizens to foreign countries (Article 61), so the request can not be
fulfilled.

Extradition requests had been granted in the past (For
example in 2002 Murad Garabayev has been handed to Turkmenistan., Garabayev's
extradition was later found unlawful by the Russian courts and he was awarded
20,000 Euros in damages to be paid by the Russian government by the European Court
of Human Rights). Article 63 does not explicitly mention Russian citizens, and
therefore does not apply to them, but only to foreign nationals living in
Russia. Article 61 supersedes it for the people holding the Russian
citizenship.

**31 May**: Lugovoy
held a news conference at which he accused MI6 of attempting to recruit him and
blamed either MI6, the Russian mafia, or fugitive Kremlin opponent Boris
Berezovsky for the killing.

**July 2007**

**16 July**: The
British Foreign Office confirms that, as a result of Russia's refusal to
extradite Lugovoy, four Russian diplomats are to be expelled from the Russian
Embassy in London.

**17 July**: The
Russia's deputy foreign minister, Mr Alexander Grushko, threatens to expel 80
UK diplomats.

**19 July**: The
Russian Foreign ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, declared the expulsion of
4 UK diplomats from the British Embassy in Moscow.

**October 2007**

**27 October**:
British newspaper Daily Mail journalists Stephen Wright and David Williams,
reported that Alexander Litvinenko was an MI6 agent and was receiving a
retainer of £2000 per month when he was murdered and that the current head of
MI6 Sir John Scarlett was involved in his recruitment, quoting unnamed
"diplomatic and intelligence" sources. Such claims have been denied
by Marina Litvinenko and Oleg Gordievsky.

**December 2008**

In the 16 December 2008 interview, when asked by the Spanish
newspaper El País if Litvinenko could have been killed in the interests of the
Russian state, Lugovoy – wanted by British police on suspicion of the murder of
Litvinenko – replied that he would order the assassination of anyone, for
example, President Saakashvili of Georgia and the KGB defector Gordievsky, in
the interests of the Russian state.

**Deaths from ingesting**
radioactive materials

According to the IAEA in 1960 a person ingested 74 MBq of
radium (assumed to be 226Ra) and this person died four years later. Harold
McCluskey survived 11 years (eventually dying from cardio respiratory failure)
after an intake of at least 37 MBq of [241Am] (He was exposed in 1976). It is
estimated that he suffered doses of 18 Gy to his bone mass, 520 Gy to the bone
surface, 8 Gy to the liver and 1.6 Gy to the lungs; it is also claimed that a
post mortem examination revealed no signs of cancer in his body. The October
1983 issue of the journal Health Physics was dedicated to McCluskey, and
subsequent papers about him appeared in the September 1995 issue.

**Similar suspicious**
deaths and poisonings

Comparisons have been made to the alleged 2004 poisoning of
Viktor Yushchenko, the alleged 2003 poisoning of Yuri Shchekochikhin and the
fatal 1978 poisoning of the journalist Georgi Markov by the Bulgarian Committee
for State Security. The incident with Litvinenko has also attracted comparisons
to the poisoning by radioactive (unconfirmed) thallium of KGB defector Nikolay
Khokhlov and journalist Shchekochikhin of Novaya Gazeta (the Novaya Gazeta
interview with the former, coincidentally, prepared by Russian journalist Anna
Politkovskaya, who was later found shot to death in her apartment building).
Like Litvinenko, Shchekochikhin had investigated the Russian apartment bombings
(he was a member of the Kovalev Commission that hired Litvinenko's friend
Mikhail Trepashkin as a legal counsel).

KGB defector and British agent Oleg Gordievsky believes the
murders of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, Shchekochikhin, and Politkovskaya and the
incident with Litvinenko show that FSB has returned to the practice of
political assassinations, which were conducted in the past by Thirteenth
Department of the KGB. A comparison was also made with Roman Tsepov who was
responsible for personal protection of Anatoly Sobchak and Putin, and who died
in Russia in 2004 from poisoning by an unknown radioactive substance.

Officers of FSB "special forces" liked to use
Litvinenko photos for target practice in shooting galleries, according to
Russian journalist Yulia Latynina