Alexander Litvinenko made headline news in 2006, with a photograph of him dying in hospital splashed across newspapers and TV news bulletins – but who killed , how did they do it, and why?
The plot sounds like something from a Bond film – and so do the characters.
But tragically, this murder in London was real-life.
Russian spy Litvinenko, 44, died a dreadful, slow death after being poisoned, as doctors watched helplessly.
So what highly toxic poison killed Alexander Litvinenko? Were the Russians to blame?
And did the killers really try to murder him in an Itsu restaurant?
As David Tennant takes on the role in ITVX drama Litvinenko, here’s everything you need to know about the former KGB agent and his murder…
Why was Litvinenko poisoned?
Alexander Litvinenko was a fierce critic of the Kremlin.
Born in Russia, he went into the army after leaving school and in 1987 joined Russian spy service, the KGB.
By 1997 he was a Lieutenant Colonel working for a top-secret department in the KGB’s successor, the FSB.
His boss at the time was Vladimir Putin.
But Litvinenko turned whistleblower.
In 1999, he spoke out publicly about the FSB’s hidden murder squad.
He gave a press conference in Moscow about it, claiming the FSB was corrupt and being used to kill high-profile people for political or financial gain.
Litvinenko claimed he was ordered to assassinate Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, an arch-critic of Putin.
So the Russian authorities arrested Litvinenko and he spent a year in jail.
Then, in 2000, Vladimir Putin became President of Russia.
Fearing for his life, Litvinenko fled to the UK with his wife Marina and claimed asylum.
Later, he secretly helped MI6 with their investigations into organised crime.
At the time of his death, Litvinenko was investigating the murder of a Russian journalist in Moscow, who was also a vocal critic of Putin.
On his deathbed, in November 2006, Alexander Litvinenko insisted the Russians had poisoned him under Putin’s orders.
He also asked his wife, Marina, to take and release the now-famous photograph of him, to show the world “what the Russians might do” to critics.
Some 10 years later, the UK finally held a public inquiry, which concluded it was “probably” true that President Putin approved Litvinenko’s murder.
In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for Litvinenko’s death and ordered Moscow to pay 100,000 euros in damages to his wife Marina.
But the Russian government continue to deny any involvement.
What killed Alexander Litvinenko?
The post-mortem on Alexander Litvinenko’s body was “the most dangerous undertaken in the Western world” according to experts.
That’s because his body was riddled with polonium-210.
It’s a highly radioactive substance and a tiny amount can kill if ingested.
But it is also very hard to detect in the body – arguably the perfect poison.
Polonium doesn’t set off radiation detectors at airports and can be stored in glass vials.
It occurs naturally, but experts said the amount used to kill Litvinenko had been manufactured – probably in a nuclear reactor.
Who killed Alexander Litvinenko: How did doctors discover it was polonium?
Alexander Litvinenko – who is played by David Tennant in the ITV drama Litvinenko – fell ill with vomiting on November 1, 2006.
At University College hospital in London, he gave the name Edwin Carter.
While his conditioned worsened, doctors had no idea what was wrong with him.
They screened him for various poisons, but everything came back negative.
As he deteriorated, he asked to speak to police and revealed his real name.
At first the police, from the counter terrorism unit, weren’t sure whether to believe him. But he gave them a phone number for “Martin”, his contact at MI6.
“Martin”, an MI6 officer, confirmed his story.
Litvinenko suspected thallium poisoning, but there was no evidence of thallium in his body.
Then samples of his urine underwent tests at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire.
To everyone’s horror, he tested positive for polonium-210.
How was Litvinenko poisoned?
Although he was in agony and slipping in and out of consciousness, Alexander Litvinenko spent three days and nights telling police everything he could.
On the day he fell ill, he had met an Italian intelligence analyst with a peak James Bond-like name, Mario Scaramella.
They went to an Itsu restaurant in London’s Piccadilly.
Litvinenko was working on the case of murdered Russian journalist and Putin critic Anna Politkovskaya.
Experts in Hazmat suits checked the Itsu eaterie with radiation detectors.
There was no trace of polonium-210 at the table where they sat, or at Scaramella’s hotel.
But there were strong traces on another table in the Itsu. It didn’t immediately make sense.
However, Litvinenko said later that day, he met two Russian men at London’s Millennium Hotel.
They offered him tea from a pot on the table.
He took three or four sips but left the rest as he didn’t like the taste and it was almost cold.
Litvinenko recalled that the two men didn’t drink it.
There were traces of polonium-210 in the hotel – including on a teacup and saucer, and in the hotel’s Pine Bar where they met.
Several hundred people needed testing for polonium-210 exposure. Fortunately no one else fell seriously ill.
Where was Litvinenko poisoned?
Police decided the Russian men slipped polonium-210 into the teapot at the Millennium Hotel – but why was there a presence in Itsu?
Litvinenko recalled another meeting with the two Russian men a fortnight earlier.
They went to Itsu – the very table where traces of polonium-210 showed up.
Litvinenko had vomited that night but otherwise showed no symptoms.
So they had tried – and failed – to poison him two weeks earlier.
Who killed Alexander Litvinenko?
The two Russian men under suspicion were Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun.
Lugovoy was a former FSB officer and Kovtun was a Russian ex-intelligence agent.
They had both entered the UK on a British Airways flight from Moscow on October 16, 2006 and stayed for two days.
Tests found traces of polonium-210 on the incoming and outbound planes, and in London’s Best Western hotel in Shaftesbury Avenue and the Parkes Hotel where they stayed.
It also showed up in restaurants where they ate and on a shisha pipe Lugovoy smoked in one before they returned to Moscow.
Nine days later, Lugovoy returned to the UK alone and stayed at London’s Sheraton Park Hotel.
The levels of polonium-210 found in Lugovoy’s bathroom there were so high that even in Hazmat suits, the team quickly left the scene.
It was in the bathroom sink and pipes, suggesting he had poured the rest down the drain.
How did Litvinenko die?
It was a truly gruesome death.
Alexander Litvinenko could barely speak or swallow. His throat was a mass of ulcers.
On November 22, 2006, after a 21-day fight, Alexander Litvinenko had a cardiac arrest.
Doctors revived him, but the following day he had a second cardiac arrest which killed him.
But it was the post mortem which revealed the true horror.
Polonium-210 releases millions of alpha waves which destroy tissue – starting with the liver and kidneys before moving to the gastrointestinal tract and heart.
His insides had literally dissolved.
What happened to Litvinenko killer suspects Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun?
In 2007 the UK police handed all their evidence against Lugovoy and Kovtun to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Both denied the accusations of murder.
The UK government wanted Lugovoy extradited to face charges on suspicion of Litvinenko’s murder.
Russia refused.
They offered to try him in Russian courts, but the then UK Director of Public Prosecutions said this would not reach the standards of “impartiality and fairness”.
In December 2007, Lugovoy became a parliamentary member – making him immune from prosecution.
He is now 56 and remains a member of the Russian parliament to this day.
Dmitry Kovtun developed radiation poisoning a month after Litvinenko’s death but survived.
He claimed on Russian TV that he must have “brought it back” after his meeting with Litvinenko.
Kovtun kept a low profile in Russia.
His German-born ex-wife told detectives investigating Litvinenko’s death that he shifted from job to job and dreamed of being a porn star.
Kovtun died of Covid aged 56 in June 2022. Lugovoy described his death as “an irreplaceable and difficult loss”.
Read more: Litvinenko on ITVX: Who’s in the cast with David Tennant?
All four episodes of Litvinenko stream on ITVX on December 15, 2022.
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