BBC - January 27. 2015
Two prior attempts to kill ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko may have been made before he died from radiation poisoning in 2006, the BBC has learned. The one-time officer with the successor to the KGB fled to the UK where he became a fierce critic of the Kremlin and worked for security service MI6. A public inquiry into the London death of the 43-year-old opens on Tuesday.
Mr Litvinenko's widow says the inquiry will give people "a chance to understand who killed my husband". Marina Litvinenko says he blamed the Kremlin as he lay dying in hospital but Russia denies any involvement. Her lawyer has described his murder as "an act of state-sponsored nuclear terrorism on the streets of London". Two prior attempts to kill ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko may have been made before he died from radiation poisoning in 2006, the BBC has learned. BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said investigators followed a radioactive trail across London and it suggested Mr Litvinenko was poisoned not on the first attempt, but on the third. BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said investigators followed a radioactive trail across London and it suggested Mr Litvinenko was poisoned not on the first attempt, but on the third.
The death of Mr Litvinenko, who took British citizenship after his arrival in the UK, had already led to a clouding of relations between London and Moscow, with expulsions of diplomats from the embassies of both countries. He died three weeks after becoming violently ill in November 2006 following a meeting with two former Russian agents at the Millennium Hotel in central London. UK police say radioactive polonium-210 was administered in a cup of tea, and identified two suspects in the case - Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun. But the two Russians have disputed their claims.
The police officer who oversaw the investigation, Peter Clarke, the former head of the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command, says Mr Litvinenko's death was "unprecedented". "There was a very strong forensic trail left behind because of the way - it is suggested that Litvinenko had been attacked," he said. "But what was unusual of course was having radioactivity involved. This was unprecedented." Speaking ahead of the inquest, Mrs Litvinenko recalled her husband's deathbed claim at University College Hospital in which he said Russian President Vladimir Putin was responsible for "everything that happened to him".
