Russia, Britain trade charges over Litvinenko report

REUTERS

The grave of murdered former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko at the Highgate Cemetery in London.

Foreign Office summons Russian envoy to set out its ‘deep concern’.

The Litvinenko inquiry report, which implicates the Russian state in the murder of a former Russian spy, has further undermined the already fraught relationship between Britain and Russia.

The British Foreign Office summoned the Russian Ambassador on Thursday to set out its “deep concern” regarding the findings of the report. David Lidington, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, told Ambassador Alexander Vladimirovich Yakovenko that the inquiry’s finding of probable involvement by the Russian state in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko was “a flagrant disregard for U.K. law, international law and standards of conduct, and the safety of U.K. citizens.”

In his 329-page report on the death of Mr. Litvinenko in 2006 in a Mayfair hotel from what appears to have been radiation poisoning, Sir Phillip Owens has claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “probably” involved in the murder of the former spy who had defected to the U.K. with his wife and son in 2000, and from where he conducted a bitter anti-Kremlin campaign.

Sir Phillip sets out a string of likely motives for the murder of Mr. Litvinenko by the Russian state with no hard evidence provided for Mr. Putin’s involvement.

Marcus Papadopoulos, Editor of the British publication Politics First, believes the report was “prejudiced from the outset” and should be dismissed. “Take the use in an official report of the word “probably”. What court in the U.K. would convict someone on “probable” guilt?”

“Litvinenko was a triple agent who had dubious connections with people involved in espionage and business. Any one of them could have killed him. If we want to have an investigation, we should start with one into M16. It is widely believed that it had planned to assassinate Slobodan Miloševiæ and Gaddaffi.”

‘Blatant provocation’

Russia has described the inquiry report as “blatant provocation” by the British authorities.

According to a statement issued by the Russian embassy in London, the Ambassador told the British minister that his country “will never accept anything arrived at in secret and based on the evidence not tested in an open court of law”. Sir Phillip has reportedly earned the nickname of “Mr. Probable” in sections of the Russian media. The Russians view the timing of the report, which comes 10 years after Mr. Litvinenko was killed, as an attempt to put pressure on Russia over differences on a range of international issues.

The Russian government has questioned the suspension in 2014 by the British government of the coroner’s inquest into Mr. Litvinenko’s death that was open for the media and public and in which the Investigative Committee of Russia took part as an interested party.

The inquest was replaced by a public inquiry, which notwithstanding the name conducted a big part of the inquiry in secret and behind closed doors.

The Russian’s allege that the inquiry was set up when tensions with Russia had escalated over developments in Ukraine in 2014. The inquiry was seriously compromised, Russia claims, as key testimony from the British secret services was given in secret to the committee.