Russian Poisonings: The Case of Alexander Litvinenko (PART 3)

In Part 3 of the Litvinenko case, we will have a look at the events that led to Litvinenko's poisoning. Then, in Part 4 we will have a look at what the Metropolitan Police did and how the British government reacted to this unbelievable series of events. 

THE KEY PLAYERS 

• Andrey Lugovoy was born in Baku, Azerbaijan and was a childhood friend of Dmitry Kovtun. Both of them joined the KGB at the same time, in the end of the 1980s. He provided protection for top officials and later on went into private business. He knew Litvinenko for 10 years before the dissident escaped to London. They were just acquaintances and were neither tied professionally or personally. 
• Dmitry Kovtun was born in 1965 and trained at the Soviet command academy in Moscow with Lugovoy. He was in East Germany at the fall of the Soviet Union and fled with his wife to claim political asylum in Hamburg. He had unfortunate luck when it came to jobs. He had worked in the hospitality industry as a dishwasher and waiter. His ex-wife said that his great dream was to be a porn star. He also had a huge drinking problem while they were married. 
• Mario Scaramella is a lawyer, security consultant and nuclear academic expert. He is responsible for intelligence analysis on GRU and KGB espionage in Europe. He was suspected by the Italian justice department for defamation. 

ANDREY LUGOVOY AND DMITRY KOVTUN

On 1st November 2006, Andrey Lugovoy and his family came to London to watch the football match between the Chelsea and CSKA Moscow football teams . He was a keen football fan, and a keen CSKA fan, so there was nothing unusual about this planned trip. Accompanying him was his wife Svetlana, his daughters 19-years-old Galina and 20-years-old Tatiana, and 8-years-old son Igor. Along was also Maxim Begak, Tatiana's boyfriend, and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, Lugovoy's business partner. 

Andrey Lugovoy

The group flew into London one day before, on 31 October, from Moscow. Tatiana and Maxim flew on the morning flight, and the rest in the afternoon. Everyone, apart for Maxim Begak, stayed at the Millennium Hotel, located at Grosvenor Square, Mayfair. The group flew back together on 3rd November 2006. 

The afternoon party flew in on BA flight 873, they all sat in seats on row 23 of this airplane. When the flight was tested for contamination, the readings showed secondary contamination, especially highest around seat 23D where Lugovoy was seated. So, this confirms the polonium trail that started this whole chain of events. 

On the same evening, just shortly after 9pm, Lugovoy made a 6 minute phone call to Litvinenko. This is important because it shows that it was Lugovoy who initiated the contact with Litvinenko and not the opposite way. There was no other phone calls that day between the two men. 

Dmitri Kovtun arrived in London early in the morning of the 1st November. He flew in from Hamburg, Germany. He was also staying at the same hotel, however he did not have his own room. Records show that he was sharing room 382 with Sokolenko. German authorities ran tests to check for contamination on the Germanwings flight that Kovtun boarded, but nothing was found. 

Dmitry Kovtun

When asked why he came to London, Kovtun did not have a clear answer. He is also purported to have contacted an old co-worker who went by the code of C2. C2 worked as a cook in the restaurant that Kovtun was a waiter back in Germany. C2 testified that Kovtun called him to arrange a meeting as he wanted to know if C2 would help him put the ''very expensive poison'' he was carrying in food that he would feed to Litvinenko. C2 was busy on that day, and also he didn't want to get involved in this kind of plot. 

ALEXANDER LITVINENKO 

The morning of 1st November was spent making phone calls to arrange meetings later on in the day by Litvinenko. He then left his house at lunch time, 12.30pm. He took the bus and metro to London city centre, arriving at around 1.30pm at Oxford Circus. There was no radiation found on the bus when tests were ran. 

At Oxford Circus, he had a meeting with Mr Attew, and did not consume any food or drink during that time. This meeting was at 2pm and lasted for 30 minutes. 

After the meeting with Mr Attew, he left the offices and went to meet Mario Scaramella. They met back in Oxford Circus at 3pm and walked to a Japanese restaurant, itsu, for lunch. They stayed there for half an hour discussing matters. He then left the restaurant at 3.40pm and walked toward the Millennium hotel, where he arrived just before 4pm.

Scaramella and Litvinenko met at Scaramella's behest. He emailed Litvinenko stating that he would be in London the following week attending a conference for the International Maritime Organisation. Scaramella was not quite fully sure whether to come to London for the conference, but his burning desire to meet with Litvinenko made his final decision. 

Mario Scaramella

He flew to London on 31 October, and the next morning at 10.00am he called Litvinenko to set up the meeting at 3pm ''in their usual place''. This was their code to meet at Piccadilly Circus. The purpose of this meeting was to ask Litvinenko's advice on an Italian parliamentary enquiry into allegations that the KGB was influencing the Italian parliament. 

Scaramella provided the police with detailed drawings of where he and Litvinenko were sitting at the restaurant, both facing opposite each other. When the police ran contamination tests, there were no traces found at the table shared by the two men. However, there was radioactive traces found at a table nearby. This table was most likely the one shared by Lugovoy, Kovtun and Litvinenko when they had a meeting on 16 October.  

WHO SUGGESTED THE MEETING FIRST? 

It was not clear to the police who first decided to have this meeting at Pine Bar. Lugovoy and Kovtun insisted that Litvinenko was the one that wanted to arrange the meeting. They gave similar statements. Lugovoy stated to the police that: ''On 1 November 2006, Mr Litvinenko called and offered to meet.''

Kovtun was a bit more liberal with his words and stated that: ''I remember that on that day, with the sense of urgency typical of him, Litvinenko proactively telephoned Lugovoy 5-8 times on a mobile telephone saying that he was not far away from the hotel and asking if he could come to see us. Lugovoy’s reply to him was that there would be hardly any time to talk because he was taking his family to a football match. In other words, it was up to Litvinenko whether he came or not. During the telephone conversations Lugovoy and I were in Shadrin’s office.” 

Pine Bar

Litvinenko had an opposite story when giving statements on his hospital bed. His statement was Lugovoy and him had plans to meet on 2 November, but at the last minute Lugovoy called and asked if they could meet on the 1st November instead. They agreed to do so, and at first they agreed to meet at 5pm, but Lugovoy requested they meet earlier at 4pm and told to Litvinenko, ''...come quicker, I am waiting for you.'' 

The confusion was cleared up quickly by the police when they checked the phone records. As mentioned earlier, they showed that Lugovoy called Litvinenko just after 9pm on 31 October 2006. After that, on the 1st November, there was another phone call at 11.41am, also initiated by Lugovoy. Later on the same day, Litvinenko made 2 phone calls to Lugovoy, one at 2.32pm and one at 2.55pm. They were very brief, about 8 seconds and 40 seconds respectively. This was a similar time when Lugovoy and Kovtun were in town on business. At 3.38pm, there was another phone call from Lugovoy to Litvinenko, was made and it lasted 39 seconds. All these corroborate with Litvinenko's recollection that they were meeting at Lugovoy's request. 

MEETING AT THE PINE BAR

The Pine Bar was located on the ground floor of the Millennium Hotel, adjacent to the lobby area. The police investigation strongly suggests that here it was that Litvinenko was poisoned by drinking green tea. 

CCTV footage shows that Lugovoy and Kovtun arrived at the hotel at 3.30pm from running errands in town. They both went to the men's toilet on separate occasions. At 3.59pm, we can see that Litvinenko arrived in the bar and was seen on his cell phone, making two collaborated phone calls to inform Lugovoy that he had arrived. At 4.30pm, we can see that Lugovoy's wife and daughters come and Lugovoy going in the lobby area to greet them. 

Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, London

There is no CCTV footage that shows Litvinenko left the hotel, but cameras across the street caught sight of him walking away from the venue at 4.39pm. There is also no recorded footage that Alexander Litvinenko was at the men's toilets. There is no CCTVs cameras at the Pine Bar but we can corroborate that this meeting happened from evidence, and also from the witness statement of the bartender, Norberto Andrade. 

Andrade worked in the Pine Bar since 1981, he was in his late sixties by the time of these events in 2006. He was no ordinary bartender. In his long and unique career he had seen it all, and served anyone and everyone. Some of the various celebrities he served included the likes of Sean Connery and film producer Cubby Broccoli who were both involved in the Bond franchise. On that particular day, he was working a 11.00 to 7.30pm shift with a younger colleague called Jacob. Andrade was serving drinks and Jacob was working behind the bar.

Norberto Andrade

He remembers that day was a busy day for the bar. There was a property auction in the hotel, and there was also a lot of Russian guests because of the football match. Lugovoy approached the bar desk and asked for a Havana cigar, a Romeo and Juliet No.1 brand, and then informed he would be back in a bit for drinks. The drinks during the whole meeting were :

• 3 Teas
• 3 Gordon's gin
• 3 Tonics
• 1 Champagne cocktail
• 1 Gordon's gin 

The tea ordered was green tea with lemon. The tea was made in a large, porcelain pot by one of Andrade's colleague, Jacob, and he just put it on a tray, with cups, and took it to the table. It was not customary for him to pour out the tea for the guests. When questioned further, Andrade explained to the police that he was busy serving other guests, and this group of 3 men well very well behaved and that ''it was as normal as any other table or any other time.'' 

The bartender was busy with this table as Kovtun and Lugovoy were very difficult guests. They first ordered the teas, then the gin, then the champagne cocktail and so on. Andrade had to go back and forth fetching drinks for them for the half an hour they were there. 

He didn't notice when Litvinenko arrived. He told the police that the group was sitting at Table 1, which is consistent with Litvinenko recall of the events. 

When Litvinenko arrived at the bar, Lugovoy greeted him alone. Litvinenko told the police that Lugovoy said they didn't have long to discuss matters, maybe 10 to 15 minutes. He was going to the football match afterwards with his family, so they were in a rush to leave. Litvinenko recalled that the tea pot was on the table with some cups around, and that the tea pot was ''...such a metal one, there was tea there. It was silver in colour, made of silver, not silver, the legs… expensive metal. It’s a rich hotel.''

As we can see, Litvinenko was remembering the pot wrongly, police put this down to being in extremene pain and it was normal that he would make some small mistakes. 

The teapot used for the poisoned tea, as you can see it had extreme levels of radiation

The bartender came and asked if he wanted to order anything, and Litvinenko refused. Lugovoy then said that anyway they were leaving, but there was still some tea in the teapot if he wanted some. Then Lugovoy requested that Andrade bring a fresh cup, which he did. Litvinenko proceeded to pour the leftover tea, there was maybe 50 grams left, to the cup. The tea had no sugar and was cold, and a bit funny tasting. Litvinenko took 3 or 4 mouthfuls and left the rest in the cup. He told police, "I didn’t like it for some reason, well almost cold tea with no sugar and I didn’t drink it anymore. Maybe in total I swallowed three or four times, I haven’t even finished that cup.''

A diagram of Pine Bar and the contamination found where the trio sat

Kovtun appeared at the table afterward and the 3 men were talking for about 20 minutes. Afterwards, a tall man came, Mr Sokolenko. He came back to the hotel with Lugovoy's wife and children. So Lugovoy went to greet his family, and Litvinenko was alone with Kovtun. After a few minutes, Lugovoy came back with his young son and introduced him to Litvinenko. ''He is such a boy, eight years old, wearing a jacket, he said, ‘This is Uncle Sasha, shake his hand.’ We shook hands, and he went...''

After that, the party separated ways. 

Continue on to Part 4 to read about the police investigation and what the political aftermath of this investigation was. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 here. 

Resources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko#Early_life_and_career
• https://time.com/4188756/who-was-alexander-litvinenko/
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/alexander-litvinenko-the-man-who-solved-his-own-murder
• https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-19647226
• https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493860/The-Litvinenko-Inquiry-H-C-695-web.pdf
• https://jamestown.org/program/fsb-officers-claim-they-were-ordered-to-kill-berezovsky/
• A Very Expensive Poison, written by Luke Harding, published 2016 by Guardian News and Media 
• Real Stories Documentary: How did the KGB Kill Alexander Litvinenko