LONDON — Former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium not once but twice, a British judge was told Tuesday, as an inquiry opened into the slaying one lawyer called an act of nuclear terrorism ordered by Moscow.
Ben Emmerson, attorney for Litvinenko’s widow, Maria, said the KGB spy turned Kremlin critic was the victim of an “assassination by agents of the Russian state.”
He said the 2006 killing “was an act of nuclear terrorism on the streets of a major city which put the lives of numerous other members of the public at risk.”
Litvinenko, who had become a Britain-based critic of the Kremlin, fell violently ill on Nov. 1, 2006, after drinking tea with two Russian men at a London hotel. He died three weeks later at age 43 of “acute radiation syndrome.”
Litvinenko’s extraordinary killing — and his deathbed statement that he was poisoned on orders from President Vladimir Putin — soured Russian-British relations for years. Judge Robert Owen, who is overseeing the inquiry, said the issues raised by the death “are of the utmost gravity.”
No one has ever stood trial for Litvinenko’s killing. Britain and the dead man’s family have accused Russia of involvement. Moscow denies the claim, and has refused to extradite the two men identified by Britain as the prime suspects.
Robin Tam, the inquiry’s legal counsel, said in an opening statement that the inquiry was not a trial whose job was to determine guilt — but that it would try to follow the evidence wherever it led.
Outlining key evidence, Tam said that detectives had found “a large number of positive traces” of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 in London locations visited by Litvinenko and the two suspects: Dmitry Kovtun and former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi. Ingesting a tiny amount is enough to kill.
Tam said the inquiry would hear evidence that Litvinenko “was poisoned with polonium not once, but twice” and the poisoning “met with at least some success” on both occasions. Litvinenko complained of feeling ill a couple of weeks before he was hospitalized, after an earlier meeting with Kovtun and Lugovoi.
The inquiry would also hear from a witness who says Kovtun asked him if he knew a London cook who could put a “very expensive poison” in Litvinenko’s food, Tam said.
Kovtun and Lugovoi have strongly denied involvement in Litvinenko’s death. The judge said they have been invited to give evidence to the inquiry by video link from Russia.
Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, has said she hopes the inquiry will reveal the long-buried truth about her husband’s death.
quiry’s legal counsel, said in an opening statement that the inquiry was not a trial whose job was to determine guilt — but that it would try to follow the evidence wherever it led.
