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Alexander Litvinenko Александр Литвиненко
Born	(1962-08-30)August 30, 1962
Died	November 23, 2006(2006-11-23) (aged 44)
Nationality	Russian
Espionage activity
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Service branch	KGB, FSB

Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko (Template:Lang-ru) (August 30, 1962 – November 23, 2006) was a former officer of the Russian State security service, and later a Russian dissident and writer.

Litvinenko became a KGB informant in 1986, and two years later, was moved into the Military Counter Intelligence. He was promoted to the Central Staff, and specialised in counter-terrorism and infiltration of organised crime. Six years later, he was promoted to senior operational officer and deputy head of the Seventh Section of the FSB.

In November 1998, Litvinenko publicly accused his superiors of ordering the assassination of Russian tycoon and oligarch, Boris Berezovsky. Litvinenko was arrested the following March on charges of exceeding his authority at work. He was acquitted in November 1999 but re-arrested before the charges were again dismissed in 2000. A third criminal case began but he fled the country to the United Kingdom with his wife, where he was granted political asylum. During his time in London Litvinenko authored two books, "Blowing up Russia: Terror from within" and "Lubyanka Criminal Group," where he accused Russian secret services of staging Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts to bring Vladimir Putin to power..

On November 1, 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. He died three weeks later from lethal poisoning by radioactive polonium-210. According to medical professionals, "Litvinenko’s murder represents an ominous landmark: the beginning of an era of nuclear terrorism."

Early life

Alexander Litvinenko was born the son of physician Walter Litvinenko in the Russian city of Voronezh. He graduated from secondary school in 1980 in Nalchik and was then drafted into the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as a Private. After a year of service, he matriculated in the Kirov Higher Command School in Vladikavkaz. After graduation in 1985, Litvinenko became a platoon commander in an Internal Troops regiment that guarded valuables in transit and in 1988 moved to the KGB.

Career in Russian security services

Litvinenko became an agent of the KGB in 1986. In 1988, he was officially transferred to the Third Chief Directorate of the KGB, Military Counter Intelligence. Later that year, after studying for a year at the Novosibirsk Military Counter Intelligence School, he became an operational officer and served in KGB military counterintelligence until 1991.

In 1991, he was promoted to the Central Staff of the MB-FSK-FSB of Russia, specialising in counter-terrorist activities and infiltration of organised crime. He was awarded the title of "MUR veteran" for operations conducted with the Moscow criminal investigation department, the MUR. Litvinenko also saw active military service in many of the so-called "hot spots" of the former USSR and Russia. During the First Chechen War Litvinenko planted several FSB agents in Chechnya. Three of them were "caught to the end, thanks to our man in Nalchik ", according to Akhmed Zakayev, who also claimed that Chechens did not kill Litvinenko during the war mostly because they "did not want to compromise our own man". Litvinenko also served as a foot soldier during the disastrous Russian operation in the Chechen-Dagestani village of Pervomayskoye, where two of his comrades were killed by friendly fire from the rocket artillery.

In 1997, Litvinenko was promoted to the Department for the Analysis of Criminal Organisations of the FSB, with the title of senior operational officer and deputy head of the Seventh Section. He was in charge of the protection of Boris Berezovsky, when Berezovsky held a government position. He was never an 'intelligence agent' and did not deal with secrets beyond information on operations against organised criminal groups..

Dissidence

During his work in the FSB Litvinenko discovered numerous connections between top brass of Russian law enforcement agencies and Russian mafia groups, such as Solntsevo gang. He wrote a memorandum about that to Boris Yeltsin. Berezovsky arranged a meeting for him with FSB director Barsukov and Deputy Director of Internal affairs Ovchinnikov to discuss the corruption problems However this had no effect. Litvinenko gradually realized that the entire system was corrupted from the top to the bottom. He explained :

"If your partner bilked you, or a creditor did not pay, or a supplier did not deliver - where did you turn to complain? ...When force became a commodity, there was always demand for it. "Roofs" appeared, people who sheltered and protected your business. First it was provided by the mob, then by police, and soon even our own guys realized what was what, and then the rivalry began among gangsters, cops, and the Agency for marker share. As the police and the FSB became more competitive, the squeezed the gangs out of the market. But in many cases competition gave way to cooperation, and the services became gangsters themselves."

On July 25, 1998, Berezovsky introduced Litvinenko to Vladimir Putin. He said: "Go see Putin. Make yourself known. See what a great guy we have installed, with your help". Litvinenko reported him about corruption in the FSB, but Putin was unimpressed. Litvinenko said to his wife after the meeting: "I could see in his eyes that he hated me".

On November 17, 1998, during the period that Vladimir Putin was the head of the FSB, five officers of FSB's Directorate for the Analysis of Criminal Organisations appeared at a press conference in the Russian news agency Interfax. The five officers, including the director of the Seventh Department, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Gusyk, three senior operative officers — Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Litvinenko, Major Andrey Ponkin, and Colonel V. V. Shebalin, Lieutenant Constantin Latyshonok, and Gherman Scheglov accused the director of the Directorate for the Analysis of Criminal Organisations Major-General Evgenii Khokholkov and his deputy, 1st Rank Captain Alexander Kamishnikov of ordering them in November 1997 to assassinate Boris Berezovsky, a Russian businessman who then held the high government post of Secretary of the Security Council and was close to President Boris Yeltsin; Berezovsky later fled to the UK to avoid criminal charges (and later helped fund Litvinenko's work).. The officers also claimed they were ordered to kill Mikhail Trepashkin and to kidnap a brother of the businessman Umar Dzhabrailov. Mikhail Trepashikin was present as a victim of the planned assassination. Several other FSB officers were also present to support the claims.

Litvinenko was dismissed from the FSB, and then arrested twice on charges which were dropped after he had spent time in Moscow prisons. In 1999, he was arrested on charges of abusing duties. He was released a month later after signing a written undertaking not to leave the country.

Vladimir Putin said later in interview to Yelena Tregubova that he personally ordered the dismissal of Litvinenko: "I fired Litvinenko and disbanded his unit ...because FSB officers should not stage press conferences. This is not their job. And they should not make internal scandals public" . Litvinenko also believed that Putin was behind his arrest. He said: "Putin had the power to decide whether to pass my file to the prosecutors or not. He always hated me. And there was a bonus for him: by throwing me to the wolves he distanced himself from Boris in the eyes of FSB's generals"

On May 23, 2007, Sergey Dorenko, formerly a prominent Russian TV host, provided The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal with the full video tape of the interview of Alexander Litvinenko and his fellow employees of FSB recorded by him in April 1998, where the agents confessed that their bosses had ordered them to kill, kidnap or frame up prominent Russian politicians and businesspeople, and thus made it publicly available in full for the first time. Only some excerpts of the video were shown in 1998.

Flight

Litvinenko fled to Turkey from Ukraine. Litvinenko's wife Marina and five-year-old son Anatoly entered Turkey legally. With the help of Alexander Goldfarb, Litvinenko bought air tickets for the Istanbul-London-Moscow flight, and asked for political asylum at Heathrow airport during the transit stop on November 1, 2000. Political asylum was granted on May 14, 2001. In October 2006 he became a naturalised British citizen living in Whitehaven. In 2002 he was convicted in his absence in Russia and given a three and a half year jail sentence.

Allegations against the Russian Government

Armenian parliament shooting

Alexander Litvinenko accused in various interviews that the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General-Staff of the Russian armed forces had organised the 1999 Armenian parliament shooting that killed prime minister of Armenia Vazgen Sargsyan. The Russian embassy in Armenia quickly denied any such involvement issuing the statement “in connection with recent press articles about the alleged involvement of the Russian special services in the tragic events at the Armenian parliament on 27 October 1999.” It also described it as an attempt to harm relations between Armenia and Russia by people against the democratic reforms in Russia.

Russian apartment bombings

Litvinenko alleged that agents from the FSB coordinated the 1999 Russian apartment bombings that killed more than 300 people, whereas Russian officials blamed the explosions on Chechen separatists. This version of events was suggested earlier by David Satter, and Sergei Yushenkov, vice chairman of the Sergei Kovalev commission created by the Russian Parliament to investigate the bombings. However, Litvinenko provided many details in his book. In December 2003 Russian authorities confiscated over 4000 copies of the book en route to Moscow from the publisher in Latvia. In the book Gang from Lubyanka, Litvinenko alleged that Vladimir Putin during his time at FSB was personally involved in organised crime.

Moscow theatre hostage crisis

Litvinenko claimed in a June 2003 interview, with the Australian television programme Dateline, that two of the Chechen terrorists involved in the 2002 Moscow theatre siege — whom he named as "Abdul the Bloody" and "Abu Bakar" — were working for the FSB, and that the agency manipulated the rebels into staging the attack. Litvinenko said: "hen they tried to find among the dead terrorists, they weren't there. The FSB got its agents out. So the FSB agents among Chechens organized the whole thing on FSB orders, and those agents were released." The story about FSB connections with the hostage takers was confirmed by Mikhail Trepashkin. "Abu Bakar" (real name probably Khanpasha Terkibaev ) was also described as FSB agent and actual organizer of the terrorist act by Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Khinshtein and other journalists In the beginning of April 2003 Litvinenko gave "the Terkibaev file" to Sergei Yushenkov when he visited London. Yushenkov passed this file to Anna Politkovskaya . A few days later Yushenkov was assassinated. Terkibaev was killed in a car crash in Chechnya.

Support of terrorism worldwide by the KGB and FSB

Litvinenko said that "all the bloodiest terrorists of the world" were connected to FSB-KGB, including Carlos "The Jackal" Ramírez, Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Abdullah Öcalan, Wadie Haddad of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Hawi who led the Communist Party of Lebanon, Ezekias Papaioannou from Cyprus, Sean Garland from Ireland and many others." He says that all of them were trained, funded, and provided with weapons, explosives and counterfeit documents in order to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide and that each act of terrorism made by these people was carried out according to the task and under the rigid control of the KGB of the USSR. Litvinenko said that "the center of global terrorism is not in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or the Chechen Republic. The terrorism infection creeps away worldwide from the cabinets of the Lubyanka Square and the Kremlin".

In a July 2005 interview with the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, Litvinenko alleged that Ayman al-Zawahiri, a prominent leader of al-Qaeda, was trained for half of a year by the FSB in Dagestan in 1997 and called him "an old agent of the FSB" Litvinenko said that after this training, Ayman al-Zawahiri "was transferred to Afghanistan, where he had never been before and where, following the recommendation of his Lubyanka chiefs, he at once ... penetrated the milieu of bin Laden and soon became his assistant in al Qaeda."

According to FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko, Ayman al-Zawahiri spend half a year in Russia, being arrested by Russian authorities in Dagestan in December 1996 and released in May 1997.. During his alleged release from a prison, Zawahiri received back his communication equipment, fake passports, and his laptop computer with coded messages. This led many to believe that Litvinenko's claim was true

Former KGB officer and writer Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy supported this claim and said that Litvinenko "was responsible for securing the secrecy of Al-Zawahiri's arrival in Russia, who was trained by FSB instructors in Dagestan, Northern Caucasus, in 1996-1997" . He said: "At that time, Litvinenko was the Head of the Subdivision for Internationally Wanted Terrorists of the First Department of the Operative-Inquiry Directorate of the FSB Anti-Terrorist Department. He was ordered to undertake the delicate mission of securing Al-Zawahiri from unintentional disclosure by the Russian police. Though Al-Zawahiri had been brought to Russia by the FSB using a false passport, it was still possible for the police to learn about his arrival and report to Moscow for verification. Such a process could disclose Al-Zawahiri as an FSB collaborator. In order to prevent this, Litvinenko visited a group of the highly placed police officers to notify them in advance."

Assassination of Anna Politkovskaya

Two weeks before his poisoning, Alexander Litvinenko accused Vladimir Putin of ordering the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and stated that a former presidential candidate Irina Hakamada warned Politkovskaya about threats to her life coming from Russian president. Litvinenko advised Politkovskaya to escape from Russia immediately. Hakamada denied her involvement in passing any specific threats, and said that she warned Politkovskaya only in general terms more than a year ago. It remains unclear if Litvinenko referred to an earlier statement made by Boris Berezovsky who claimed that former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Boris Nemtsov received a word from Hakamada that Putin threatened her and like-minded colleagues in person. According to Berezovsky, Putin uttered that Hakamada and her colleagues "will take in the head immediately, literally, not figuratively" if they "open the mouth" about the Russian apartment bombings.

Others

In an article written by Litvinenko in July 2006, and published online on Zakayev's Chechenpress website, he claimed that Vladimir Putin is a paedophile, and compared Putin to Andrei Chikatilo. Litvinenko also claimed that Anatoly Trofimov and Artyom Borovik knew of the alleged paedophilia. The claims have been called "wild", and "sensational and unsubstantiated" in the British media. A report by the Conflict Studies Research Centre of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, in which the author states that Litvinenko was a "one-man disinformation bureau", suggests the claim was made with "no evidence to support" it, and further stated that this claim, and Litvinenko's claim that the FSB was behind the Beslan school hostage crisis, was accepted without challenge by the British media. Litvinenko made the allegation after Putin kissed a boy on his belly whilst stopping to chat with some tourists during a walk in the Kremlin grounds on 28 June 2006. The incident was recalled in a webcast organised by the BBC and Yandex, in which over 11,000 people asked Putin to explain the act, to which he responded, "He seemed very independent and serious... I wanted to cuddle him like a kitten and it came out in this gesture. He seemed so nice...There is nothing behind it." It has been suggested that the incident was a "clumsy attempt" to soften Putin's image in the lead-up the 32nd G8 Summit which was held in Saint Petersburg in July 2006.

After Litvinenko's death, it was revealed in the book Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, co-written by Litvinenko's widow Marina, that when Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov commented on a new law that "Russia has the right to carry out preemptive strikes on militant bases abroad" and explained that these "preemptive strikes may involve anything, except nuclear weapons", Litvinenko said that "You know who they mean when they say 'terrorist bases abroad'? They mean us, Zakayev and Boris, and me".

In 2004 Litvinenko said that "It was considered in our service that poison is an easier weapon than a pistol". He referred to a secret laboratory in Moscow that still continues development of deadly poisons, according to him .

Allegations concerning Romano Prodi

According to Litvinenko, FSB deputy chief, General Anatoly Trofimov said to him "Don’t go to Italy, there are many KGB agents among the politicians. Romano Prodi is our man there", meaning Romano Prodi, the Italian centre-left leader, former Prime Minister of Italy and former President of the European Commission. The conversation with Trofimov took place in 2000, after the Prodi-KGB scandal broke out in October 1999 due to information about Prodi provided by Vasili Mitrokhin.

In April 2006, a British Member of the European Parliament for London, Gerard Batten of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) demanded an inquiry into the allegations. According to Brussels-based newspaper, the EU Reporter on April 3, 2006, "another high-level source, a former KGB operative in London, has confirmed the story".

Later, in an interview to La Repubblica, Litvinenko had been asked by Mr.Scaramella if the tip that Prodi had passed on about the safe house where Aldo Moro was held after being kidnapped by the Red Brigades had its source in the KGB (and not in a séance, as Prodi had claimed); and if the KGB were behind Moro's kidnapping and the training of the Red Brigades. Litvinenko's replied that he does not know "any details about Moro's kidnapping" and that he has no "any kind of evidence about Prodi" in that regard

On April 26, 2006, Batten repeated his call for a parliamentary inquiry, revealing that "former, senior members of the KGB are willing to testify in such an investigation, under the right conditions". He added, "It is not acceptable that this situation is unresolved, given the importance of Russia's relations with the European Union". On January 22, 2007, the BBC and ITV News released documents and video footage, from February 2006, in which Litvinenko repeated his statements about Prodi.

Shooting practice controversy

In January 2007, Polish newspaper Dziennik revealed that a picture of Litvinenko was used as a shooting target by the Russian special forces unit Vityaz in October 2002. The targets were also photographed by chance when the chairman of the Russian Duma's upper house Sergei Mironov visited the centre and met its head Sergei Lysiuk on November 7, 2006.

Former FSB officer Mikhail Trepashkin stated he warned in 2002 that an FSB unit was assigned to assassinate Litvinenko.

Illness and poisoning

On November 1, 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalised. His illness was later attributed to poisoning with radionuclide polonium-210 after the Health Protection Agency found significant amounts of the rare and highly toxic element in his body. In interviews, Litvinenko stated that he met with two former KGB agents early on the day he fell ill - Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi, though they deny any wrongdoing. The men also introduced Litvinenko to a tall, thin man of central Asian appearance called 'Vladislav Sokolenko' who Lugovoi said was a business partner. Lugovoi is also a former bodyguard of Russian ex-prime minister Yegor Gaidar (who also suffered from a mysterious illness in November 2006). Later, he had lunch at Itsu, a sushi restaurant in Soho in London, with an Italian acquaintance and nuclear waste expert, Mario Scaramella, to whom he made the allegations regarding Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Scaramella, attached to the Mitrokhin Commission investigating KGB penetration of Italian politics, claimed to have information on the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, 48, a journalist who was killed at her Moscow apartment in October 2006.

Marina Litvinenko, widow of the deceased, accused Moscow of orchestrating the murder. Though she believes the order did not come from Putin himself, she does believe it was done at the behest of the authorities, and announced that she will refuse to provide evidence to any Russian investigation out of fear that it would be misused or misrepresented.

Investigation

On January 20, 2007 British police announced that they have "identified the man they believe poisoned Alexander Litvinenko. The suspected killer was captured on cameras at Heathrow as he flew into Britain to carry out the murder." The man in question was introduced to Litvinenko as 'Vladislav Sokolenko'. This name was an alias used by the killer as he had entered Britain using a fake EU passport. Because of the sloppy manner in which the polonium-210 was handled and left traces at several locations, it is very possible that Sokolenko is a Hamburg-based Chechen hitman known to the FSB as 'Pабочий' or 'Roustabout', named such because he previously worked on an oil rig and because of his willingness to move wherever work takes him. Roustabout has been compared to a clown in a travelling-circus - clumsy yet brave. He has also been an associate of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

As of January 26, 2007, British officials said police had solved the murder of Litvinenko. They discovered "a 'hot' teapot at London's Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing." In addition, a senior official said investigators had concluded the murder of Litvinenko was "a 'state-sponsored' assassination orchestrated by Russian security services." The police want to charge former Russian spy Andrei Lugovoi, who met with Litvinenko on November 1, 2006, the day officials believe the lethal dose of polonium-210 was administered.

On the same day, The Guardian reported that the British government was preparing an extradition request asking that Andrei Lugovoi be returned to the UK to stand trial for Litvinenko's murder. On May 22, 2007 the Crown Prosecution Service called for the extradition of Russian citizen Andrei Lugovoi to the UK on charges of murder . Lugovoi dismissed the claims against him as "politically motivated" and said he did not kill Litvinenko.

A British police investigation resulted in several suspects for the murder, but in May 2007, the British Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, announced that his government would seek to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the chief suspect of the case, from Russia. On May 28, 2007, the British Foreign Office officially submitted a request to the Government of Russia for the extradition of Lugovoi to face criminal charges in the UK. On July 5, 2007, Russia officially declined to extradite Lugovoi, citing that extradition of citizens is not allowed under the Russian constitution. Russia has said that they could take on the case themselves if Britain provided evidence against Lugovoi but Britain has not handed over any evidence. The head of the investigating committee at the General Prosecutor's Office said Russia has not yet received any evidence from Britain on Lugovoi. "We have not received any evidence from London of Lugovoi's guilt, and those documents we have are full of blank spaces and contradictions.

Conversion to Islam

Two days before his death Litvinenko informed his father that he had converted to Islam. According to his father, Litvinenko had become increasingly disenchanted with the Russian Orthodox Church and had been contemplating conversion for "some time." Litvinenko's conversion to Islam and the related wish for Muslim funeral rites were recognized by his father. However, his widow, Marina, as well as his close friend (and press spokesman during his illness), Alexander Goldfarb, preferred a non-denominational ceremony. Goldfarb stated, "Unfortunately some people appeared and against the explicit wishes of the widow performed Muslim rites over the funeral. We had a choice to turn it into an unseemly situation, but Marina asked us to respect the memory of Alexander and let these people do what they did. Let God be their judge." Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, contended that Litvineko actually converted to Islam 10 days before he was poisoned.

Akhmed Zakayev, Foreign Minister of Chechen government-in-exile who lived next door to Mr Litvinenko and considered him "like a brother," said: "He was read to from the Qur'an the day before he died and had told his wife and family that he wanted to be buried in accordance with Muslim tradition."

Death and last statement

On November 22, Litvinenko's medical staff at University College Hospital reported he had suffered a "major setback" due to either heart failure or an overnight heart attack; he died the following day. Scotland Yard reported that, "Inquiries continue into the circumstances surrounding how Mr Litvinenko, 43 years, of North London, became unwell."

On November 24, a posthumous statement was released. Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb, who is also the chairman of Boris Berezovsky's Civil Liberties Fund, said Litvinenko had dictated it to him three days earlier. Andrei Nekrasov said his friend Litvinenko and Litvinenko's lawyer composed the statement in Russian on November 21 and translated it to English.

I would like to thank many people. My doctors, nurses and hospital staff who are doing all they can for me, the British police who are pursuing my case with vigour and professionalism and are watching over me and my family. I would like to thank the British government for taking me under their care. I am honoured to be a British citizen.

I would like to thank the British public for their messages of support and for the interest they have shown in my plight.

I thank my wife Marina, who has stood by me. My love for her and our son knows no bounds.

But as I lie here I can distinctly hear the beating of wings of the angel of death. I may be able to give him the slip but I have to say my legs do not run as fast as I would like. I think, therefore, that 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.

Putin disputed the authenticity of this note while attending a Russia-EU summit in Helsinki:

It is a pity that tragic events like death have been used for political provocations. Those who did it are not God, and Mr. Litvinenko is unfortunately not Lazarus.

His postmortem took place on December 1 at the Royal London Hospital's institute of pathology. It was attended by three physicians, including one chosen by the family and one from the Foreign Office. Litvinenko was buried at Highgate Cemetery in north London on December 7. The police are treating his death as murder. On November 25, two days after Litvinenko's death, an article attributed to him was published by The Mail on Sunday entitled "Why I believe Putin wanted me dead".

In an interview with the BBC broadcast on December 16, 2006, Yuri Shvets said that Litvinenko had created a 'due diligence' report investigating the activities of a senior Kremlin official on behalf of a British company looking to invest "dozens of millions of dollars" in a project in Russia. He said the dossier was so incriminating about the senior Kremlin official, who was not named, it was likely that Litvinenko was murdered out of spite. He alleged that Litvinenko had shown the dossier to another business associate, Andrei Lugovoi, who had worked for the KGB and later the FSB. Shvets alleged that Lugovoi is still an FSB informant and he had spread copies of the dossier to members of the spy service. He said he was interviewed about his allegations by Scotland Yard detectives investigating Litvinenko's murder. Shvets has also doubted Litvinenko's capacity to perform honest unbiased due diligence. The poisoning and consequent death of Litvinenko was not widely covered in the Russian news media.

Alleged MI6 involvement

On October 27, 2007, the Daily Mail, citing unnamed "diplomatic and intelligence sources," stated that Mr Litvinenko was paid about £2,000 per month by the SIS (the British Secret Intelligence Service, better known by its former name - MI6) at the time of his murder. Allegedly, Sir John Scarlett, the current head of the SIS, was personally involved in recruiting him. The claim was dismissed as "nonsense" by Mr Litvinenko's widow. She said :

"President Putin is providing Mr Lugovoi with his personal endorsement and backing in the eyes of the world. This indicates that Russia has something to hide and adds credence to Alexander's deathbed statement naming Mr Putin as the instigator of his murder."

According to Alexander Goldfarb, a co-author of Litvinenko :

"Litvinenko was living in England. I don't see what value he could have been to the British security services. Putin's regime believes that there is a British conspiracy against Russia and that Russian exiles in England are working for the security services. They are paranoid."

In July 2007, Russian officials announced a criminal investigation had been opened into allegations made by Vyacheslav Zharko, who had turned himself in to the FSB . Zharko said that he worked for British intelligence since 2002 and claimed that Litvinenko and Boris Berezovsky introduced him to MI6 . Zharko alleged that Litvinenko planned a series of terrorism acts including murder of Russian president Vladimir Putin . An FSB spokesman said: "The Brits have been waging an information war against us and now we are responding in kind." .

See also

Subjects

• Russian apartment bombings
• Allegations of state terrorism by Russia
• Nuclear terrorism
• Nuclear crime
• Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services
• Active measures
• Chekism
• List of journalists killed in Russia

People

• John Henry (toxicologist) who dealt with Litvinenko's poisoning
• Mario Scaramella, key Italian security expert and nuclear waste expert who was working with Litvinenko and also was contaminated with polonium-210. Scaramella is currently under investigation by the Italian justice department for calumny and illegal weapons trade.
• Anna Politkovskaya, murdered Russian journalist and human rights activist well-known for her opposition to the Putin administration
• Artyom Borovik, Russian journalist who died in a plane crash while investigating Russian apartment bombings
• Galina Starovoitova, assassinated leader of Democratic Russia party
• Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident assassinated in London in 1978; Soviet/Russian secret services are suspected to have been involved

References

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26. "Russia Denies Involvement in 1999 Armenian Parliament Shooting". May 12, 2005. Retrieved 2007-03-25.
27. "The Truth About Beslan". November 29, 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-13.
28. "Russian editor questioned over seizure of controversial book (BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union, text of report by Russian news agency Ekho Moskvy )". Terror 99. January 29, 2004. Retrieved 2006-12-23.
29. Lazaredes, Nick (June 4, 2003). "Terrorism takes front stage — Russia's theatre siege". SBS. Retrieved 2006-11-28.
30. Dissident lawyer jailed on trumped up charges
31. Litvinenko `Rebellion' Poses Awkward Questions: Cannes Roundup By Iain Millar
32. Where is "ABUBAKAR?"
33. Russian Authorities Hedge Over Special Services Involvement In Moscow Theater Siege, by Anna Politkovskaya, Novaya Gazeta, May 5, 2003
34. A Critical Analysis of Western Realpolitik. The Case of Russia and Chechnya
35. The Moscow Hostage-Taking Incident (Part 1) By John B. Dunlop, Radio Free Europe
36. Chechen Bank Formation by Alek Akhundov, Kommersant Oct. 28, 2004]
37. ^ The originator of the acts of terrorism in London was standing near Tony Blair Retrieved on April 3, 2008
38. "The originator of the acts of terrorism in London was standing near Tony Blair". July 19, 2005. Retrieved 2006-11-30.
39. Litvinenko, Alexander (March 23, 2005). "The KGBism, Terrorism and Gangsterism are Triplets". Chechen Press. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
40. Nyquist, J.R. (November 20, 2006). "Kremlin Poison". Financial Sense Online. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
41. Nyquist, J.R. (August 13, 2005). "Is Al Qaeda a Kremlin Proxy?". Retrieved 2006-11-29.
42. Gebara, Khalil (February 10, 2005). "The End of Egyptian Islamic Jihad?". The Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
43. Behind Islamic Terror By: William F. Jasper, New American, September 3, 2007
44. The Putin-Osama Connection By Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine, January 16, 2008
45. Russia and Islam are not Separate: Why Russia backs Al-Qaeda, by Konstantin Preobrazhensky.
46. Template:Ru icon"Ирина Хакамада о партийном строительстве и экономической ситуации в России". Svoboda News. December 4, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
47. Live interview with Berezovsky by Evgenia Albats, Radio Echo of Moscow, 11 June 2006. Transcript in Russian, computer translation.
48. Litvinenko, Alexander (5 July 2006). "The Kremlin Pedophile". Chechenpress. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
49. ^ Template:Ru icon Litvinenko, Alexander (5 July 2006). "Кремлевский чикатило»". Chechenpress. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
50. Svetlichnaja, Julia (3 December 206). "Strange stroll around Hyde Park that went nowhere". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
51. ^ "Poisoned spy accused Putin of being a paedophile". Daily Mail. 20 November 206. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
52. Monaghan, Dr Andrew (22 May 2007). "Misunderstanding Russia: Alexander Litvinenko". The UK & Russia - A Troubled Relationship Part I (PDF). Conflict Studies Research Centre of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. pp. pp. 9-12. ISBN 9781905962150. Retrieved 2008-11-11. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
53. "Putin recalls kissing boy's belly". BBC News Online. 6 July 2006. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
54. Litvinenko's Poisoning: Detailed Unfolding of Events
55. "Gerard Battem, One-minute speeches on matters of political importance". European Parliament, Debates. April 3, 2006. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
56. "Former FSB General, Wife Shot Dead in Moscow". Mosnews.com. April 11, 2005. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
57. "Gerard Battem, One-minute speeches on matters of political importance". European Parliament, Debates. April 3, 2006. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
58. "Former FSB General, Wife Shot Dead in Moscow". Mosnews.com. April 11, 2005. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
59. Donnelly, Cillian (April 3, 2006). "Prodi Accused Of Being Former Soviet Agent". EU Reporter. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
60. "E Litvinenko raccontò "Volevano sapere di Prodi"" (in Italian). La Repubblica . November 26, 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-26. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
61. Batten, Gerard (April 26, 2006). "2006: Speech in the European Parliament: Romano Prodi". Gerard Batten MEP. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
62. "'Multiple attempts' on Litvinenko". BBC. January 22, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-01.
63. "Litvinenko footage emerges". ITV News. January 22, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-01.
64. Russian special forces shot at Litvinenko, Dariusz Rembelski, Magdalena Miroszewska, Dziennik Online, 30 January 2007.
65. Google cache of the article on upper house chairman Mironov visiting Vityaz 7 November 2006Template:Ru icon. Accessed 30 January 2007.
66. Litvinenko Shooting Gallery, Alexander Voronov, Marina Chistyakova, and Alla Barakhova, Kommersant, 31 January, 2007.
67. "Ex-Spy Claims Litvinenko Was Targeted". Washington Post. December 1, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-01.
68. Batten, Gerard (April 3, 2006). "Gerard Batten MEP - "60 second speech to the European Parliament "Romano Prodi" - Strasbourg". United Kingdom Independence Party. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
69. "Dead spy's widow accuses Russian authorities". CNN. December 10, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-10.
70. "Police match image of Litvinenko's real assassin with his death-bed description". Times Online. January 20, 2007. Retrieved 2006-01-22.
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72. "Murder in a Teapot". "The Blotter" on ABCNews.com. January 26, 2007. Retrieved 2006-01-26.
73. UK wants to try Russian for Litvinenko murder The Guardian. 26 January 2007
74. "Russian faces Litvinenko charge". BBC News. May 22, 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-22.
75. "Spy Murder Charge "Politically Motivated"". Sky News. May 22, 2007. Retrieved 2006-05-22.
76. "British Prosecutors to Press Murder Charges in Litvinenko Case". Voice of America. May 22, 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-22.
77. "UK requests Lugovoi extradition". BBC. May 28, 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-28.
78. RIA Novosti - Russia - Wrap: Lugovoi says innocent, Berezovsky behind Litvinenko murder
79. "Litvinenko's Father Says Son Requested Muslim Burial". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 2006-12-05. Retrieved 2006-12-06.
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84. "Poisoned Russian former spy dies". CNN. November 23, 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-23.
85. An interview with Andrei Nekrasov by Yury Veksler, Radio Liberty, November 28, 2006. Transcript in Russian, computer translation.
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His books

• Alexander Litvinenko, Yuri Felshtinsky, "Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror" Encounter Books, New York, 2007 ISBN 978-159403-2011
• Alexander Litvinenko: "Allegations – Selected Works by Alexander Litvinenko", translated from Russian and edited by Pavel Stroilov, introduction by Vladimir Bukovsky, Publisher: Aquilion (12 November 2007), ISBN 978-1907997054. Amazon UK. Interview with Pavel Stoilov about the book.
• A. Litvinenko and A. Goldfarb. Criminal gang from LubyankaTemplate:Ru icon GRANI, New York, 2002, ISBN 978-0-9723878-0-4.
  • А. Литвиненко Лубянская преступная группировкаTemplate:Ru icon GRANI, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-9723878-0-3.
• Yuri Felshtinsky, Alexander Litvinenko, and Geoffrey Andrews. Blowing up Russia: Terror from within Gibson Square Books, London, 2007, ISBN 978-1903933954.
  • Юрий Фельштинский, Алехандер Литвиненко ФСБ ВЗРЫВАЕТ РОССИЮ 2004 Full book in Russian

Books and Films about him

• Alan S. Cowell: "The Terminal Spy: A True Story of Espionage, Betrayal and Murder", Random House, 2008. ISBN 978-0-7393-7054-4
• Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko. "Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB." Free Press, New York, 2007. ISBN 978-1416551652.
• Martin Sixsmith: "The Litvinenko File; the True Story of a Death Foretold", Publisher: Macmillan (2 April 2007) ISBN-10: 0230531547 ISBN-13: 978-0230531543
• Andrei Nekrasov: "Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case", 2007, Dreamscanner, official site: http://www.dreamscanner-productions.com/litvinenko/index.html

External links

• Litvinenko Justice Foundation on Litvinenko.org.uk
• Alexander Litvinenko at the Frontline Club accusing Vladimir Putin of the assassination of journalist Anna Politkovskaya (In Russian and English)
• 'Promise me you won't go back to Russia - or you will be the next' - an article by film-maker Andrei Nekrasov in The Times
• Russia: High-Profile Killings, Attempted Killings In The Post-Soviet Period, Radio Free Europe, October 19, 2006
• Natalia Mozgovaya, Interview with Marina Litvinenko (widow) Part1 Part2 Template:Ru icon
• Dateline: Who killed Alexander Litvinenko?
• "A conversation with Marina Litvinenko and Alex Goldfarb" Charlie Rose
• Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror Historian Yuri Felshtinsky tells about life and death of his co-author Alexander Litvinenko at C-SPAN
• From Russia with death, a Symposium by FrontPageMag
• Russian site dedicated to Alexander Litvinenko
• All about Aleksandr Litvinenko (in Russian)
• Book over the Litvinenko Murder

Template:Persondata

• 1962 births
• 2006 deaths
• Assassinated British people
• Assassinated dissidents
• Assassinated Russian people
• Assassinated spies
• British writers
• Burials at Highgate Cemetery
• Converts to Islam
• Deaths by poisoning
• English people of Russian descent
• Espionage scandals and incidents
• Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation
• Former Eastern Orthodox Christians
• KGB officers
• Murdered writers
• People of the Chechen wars
• Russian dissidents
• Russian people murdered abroad
• Russian writers
• Unsolved murders
• Victims of radiological poisoning
• People murdered in England
• Russian immigrants to the United Kingdom