Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and its Soviet predecessor, the Committee for State Security (KGB), until he left the service and fled the country in late 2000, defecting to the UK.
In 1998, Litvinenko and several other Russian intelligence officers said they had been ordered to kill Boris Berezovsky, a Russian businessman. After that, the Russian government began to persecute Litvinenko. He fled to the UK, where he criticised the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. In exile, Litvinenko worked with British and Spanish intelligence, sharing information about the Russian mafia in Europe and its connections with the Russian government.
On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko was poisoned and later hospitalised. He died on 23 November, becoming the first confirmed victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome. Litvinenko's allegations about misdeeds of the FSB and his public deathbed accusations that Putin was behind his poisoning resulted in worldwide media coverage.
Subsequent investigations by British authorities into the circumstances of Litvinenko's death led to serious diplomatic difficulties between the British and Russian governments. In September 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Russia was responsible for the assassination of Litvinenko and ordered Russia to pay Litvinenko's wife €100,000 in damages plus €22,500 in costs.
The ECHR found beyond reasonable doubt that Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun killed Litvinenko. The Court's decision is in line with the findings of a 2016 UK inquiry. The UK concluded that the murder was "probably approved by Mr. [Nikolai] Patrushev, then head of the FSB, and also by President Putin."
Background
Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who escaped prosecution in Russia and received in the United Kingdom political asylum in spring 2001. In his books, Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within and Lubyanka Criminal Group, Litvinenko alleged that the FSB organized the bombing of apartment buildings in Moscow and other Russian cities in 1999 to pave the way for the Second Chechen War, which brought Vladimir Putin to power. He accused Russian secret services of having arranged the Moscow theater hostage crisis, through their Chechen agent provocateur, and having organised the 1999 Armenian parliament shooting. He also claimed that the Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was under FSB control when he visited Russia in 1997.
Upon his arrival in London, he continued to support the Russian oligarch in exile, Boris Berezovsky, in his media campaign against the Russian government.
Just two weeks before his death, Litvinenko accused Putin of ordering the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist and human rights activist.
Illness and poisoning
On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill. Earlier that day he had met two Russian ex-KGB officers, Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, at the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel in London. Lugovoy is a former bodyguard of Russian ex-Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar (also reportedly poisoned in November 2006) and later the chief of security for the Russian TV channel ORT. 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 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.
In the evening, Litvinenko began vomiting and later developed bloody diarrhea. At one point, he could not walk without assistance. As the pain intensified, Litvinenko asked his wife to call an ambulance, before being hospitalized on 3 November. For several days, Litvinenko's condition worsened as doctors searched for the cause of the illness. Surrounded by friends, Litvinenko became physically weak, and spent periods unconscious. On his deathbed, Litvinenko stated to detectives that he believed President Putin had directly ordered his assassination. Three days before his death, photographs were taken of Litvinenko and released to the public. "I want the world to see what they did to me," he said.
Poison
On 3 November 2006, Litvinenko (under the pseudonym of Edwin Carter) was admitted to Barnet Hospital in north London, where he was initially treated for gastroenteritis. As his condition worsened, he told doctors his true identity and claimed to have been poisoned, before being transferred on 17 November to University College Hospital in central London for intensive care. Subsequently, his blood and urine samples were sent to the UK's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), where they were tested for radioactive poison using gamma spectroscopy. No discernible gamma rays were initially detected, but a small gamma ray spike was noticed at an energy of 803 kilo-electronvolts (keV), barely visible above the background.
The BBC reported that by coincidence another scientist, who had worked on Britain's early atomic bomb programme decades before, happened to overhear a discussion about the small spike and recognised it as the gamma ray signal from the radioactive decay of polonium-210, which was a critical component of early nuclear bombs. On the evening of 22 November, shortly before his death, his doctors were informed the poison was likely to be polonium-210. Further tests on a larger urine sample using spectroscopy designed to detect alpha particles confirmed the result the following day.
Unlike some other sources of radiation, polonium-210 emits very little gamma radiation, but large amounts of alpha particles which are relatively difficult to detect with common radiation detectors such as Geiger counters. This explained why tests conducted by doctors and Scotland Yard at the hospital with Geiger counters were negative. 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, acting on living cells like a short-range weapon. Hours before his death, Litvinenko was tested for alpha-emitters using special equipment.
Shortly after his death, the UK's Health Protection Agency (HPA) stated that tests had established Litvinenko had significant amounts of the radionuclide polonium-210 (210Po) in his body, and that those who had contact with Litvinenko may also have been exposed to radiation. Mario Scaramella, who had eaten with Litvinenko at Itsu, reported that doctors had told him the body had five times the lethal dose of polonium-210. However, the table where he had sat with Litvinenko on 1 November was later found to be free from radioactive contamination. On 30 November, it was reported that further medical tests had discovered Scaramella was not contaminated at all. British and US government officials said the use of 210Po as a poison had never been documented before, and it was probably the first time anyone had been tested for the presence of 210Po in their body.
It was later discovered that the poison was in a teapot at the Millennium Hotel's Pine Bar from which Litvinenko drank some green tea on 1 November. The symptoms seen in Litvinenko appeared consistent with an administered activity of approximately 1.85 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. The studies of the biodistribution of 210Po using gamma-ray spectrometry in post-mortem samples were used to estimate intake as 4.4 GBq.
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. 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
Late on 22 November, Litvinenko's heart failed, and he died the following day; the official time of death was 21:21 at University College Hospital in London.
The autopsy took place on 1 December, conducted by Benjamin Swift and Nathaniel Cary, with a third pathologist observing from a safe distance.
Litvinenko had ingested polonium-210, a poisonous radioactive isotope. Litvinenko's funeral took place on 7 December at the London Central Mosque, after which his body was buried at Highgate Cemetery in North London.
In his last statement he said about Putin:
...this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition. You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value. You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women. You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.
Investigation
Initial steps
Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service Terrorism Unit investigated the poisoning and death. The head of the Counter-Terrorism Unit, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, stated the police would "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 COBR 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 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 also joined the investigation, providing "speedy exchange of information" between British, Russian and German police.
Polonium trails
When it became clear that Litvinenko had been poisoned by a radioactive substance, a team of scientists were assembled to investigate how far the contamination had spread; traces of polonium-210 were subsequently found at more than 40 locations in and out of London. Detectives discovered three distinct polonium trails at three different dates, which according to the investigation suggests Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun made two failed attempts to administer polonium to Litvinenko before the final and successful one. The first attempt took place on 16 October 2006, when Lugovoy and Kovtun met Litvinenko in London; they tried to poison him at an office of Erinys International, a security company, at 25 Grosvenor Street, in Mayfair, and later had lunch with him at the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly Circus. On that occasion the amount of polonium ingested by Litvinenko was far lower than the lethal amount and he survived it, though he had indeed reportedly felt ill. Polonium trails left by the pair also started on 16 October; the Erinys boardroom, the Itsu restaurant, and their hotel rooms, at 65-73 Shaftesbury Avenue, were found to be contaminated.
Apparently, Lugovoy and Kovtun did not fully realize they were handling a radioactive poison. Journalist Luke Harding described their behaviour as "idiotic, verging on suicidal"; while handling a leaky container, they stored it in their hotel rooms, used ordinary towels to clean up leaks, and eventually disposed of the poison in the bathroom sink. On 17 October, perhaps realizing they contaminated their rooms, they prematurely checked out, moved to another hotel, and left London the next day.
Another unsuccessful assassination attempt took place on 25 October, when Lugovoy flew to London again. He left radioactive traces again in his hotel, Sheraton Park Lane, 58 Grosvenor Street, prior to meeting Litvinenko at the hotel's tearoom, but did not administer the poison, perhaps fearing detection by security cameras in the room. He again disposed of the poison via his room's bathroom sink, and left London.