Putin ‘Probably Approved’ Litvinenko Poisoning, British Inquiry Says
By ALAN COWELL

LONDON — In the dank, dark days of November 2006, as Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. officer turned foe of the Kremlin, lay dying in a London hospital, he and his associates composed a deathbed missive to President Vladimir V. Putin.

In the letter, Mr. Litvinenko said he could hear “the beating of wings of the angel of death” and blamed Mr. Putin for his plight. But, he told the Russian leader, “the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.”

The echo could be heard Thursday with the release of the final report of a lengthy public inquiry into Mr. Litvinenko’s death. It was probable, said the report, by a retired judge, Sir Robert Owen, that Mr. Putin and his spy chief at the time, Nikolai Patrushev, had approved an operation to kill Mr. Litvinenko, using a highly toxic and rare isotope, polonium 210.

“Strong circumstantial evidence of Russian state responsibility,” the judge wrote, had led him to the conclusion that Mr. Litvinenko was indeed poisoned when he met Andrei K. Lugovoi, a former K.G.B bodyguard, and Dmitri V. Kovtun, a Red Army deserter, for tea in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel in London on Nov. 1, 2006.

The polonium that was used to poison Mr. Litvinenko, the judge said, had probably come from a Russian reactor, and he said there were “powerful motives for organizations and individuals within the Russian state to take action” against the former K.G.B. officer.

Though Sir Robert’s 328-page report, more than nine years after the poisoning, cited no hard evidence that Mr. Putin or Mr. Patrushev had been aware of the plot to kill Mr. Litvinenko or had sanctioned it, the conclusions were the most damning official links between Mr. Litvinenko’s death and the highest levels of the Kremlin.

“Taking full account of all the evidence and analysis available to me,” Sir Robert said in the report, referring to the Russian security service, “I find that the F.S.B. operation to kill Mr. Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr. Patrushev and also by President Putin.”

The report was more emphatic when it came to how Mr. Litvinenko died.

“I am sure that Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun placed the polonium 210 in the teapot at the Pine Bar,” the report said. “I am sure that Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun were acting on behalf of others when they poisoned Mr. Litvinenko.”

Sir Robert based his conclusions on public testimony from 64 witnesses and secret evidence in closed hearings, placing an imprimatur on what had been previously dismissed in Russia as speculation.

Sir Robert on Thursday listed various possible motives for Mr. Litvinenko’s assassination, including a belief among Russian security officials that the former officer had betrayed the F.S.B. and had begun to work for British intelligence after he fled to Britain in 2000. Mr. Litvinenko was also a close associate of prominent opponents of the Kremlin based in London, including Boris A. Berezovsky, a former oligarch and enemy of Mr. Putin’s who died in 2013, the report said.

Mr. Putin and Mr. Litvinenko, both veterans of the K.G.B., served in its successor agency, the F.S.B., or Federal Security Service, with Mr. Putin going on to lead that intelligence agency.

Andrei K. Lugovoi, one of the men accused in Mr. Litvinenko’s death, in Moscow in 2013. Credit Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

“There was undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism between Mr. Litvinenko on one hand and President Putin on the other,” Sir Robert wrote in his report.

As the deathbed letter, read to journalists, had forecast, the “howl of protest” arose anew on Thursday, with Mr. Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, demanding the expulsion of Russian spies from Britain and targeted economic sanctions against Mr. Patrushev and Mr. Putin. Sitting beside her at a news conference, Marina Litvinenko’s lawyer, Ben Emmerson, said it would be “craven” of Prime Minister David Cameron to fail to respond to what he called “nuclear terrorism” on the streets of London.

Dmitri V. Kovtun, who was also accused in Mr. Litvinenko’s death, in Moscow in 2015. Credit Dmitry Serebryakov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In Parliament, the home secretary, Theresa May, called Mr. Litvinenko’s death “a blatant and unacceptable breach of the most fundamental tenets of international law and of civilized behavior,” while also noting that it “does not come as a surprise” that Russia apparently had a role. She said the British assets of Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun would be frozen, although she did not say how valuable those assets were. Ms. May also said the Russian ambassador would be summoned to be told of Britain’s response.

For all that, officials indicated that Britain was not likely to do anything that would plunge relations into an icy chill similar to what occurred after Mr. Litvinenko’s death in 2006.

Russia on Thursday responded to the judge’s report, calling the inquiry politicized and saying it was not public at all.

“We regret that the strictly criminal case has been politicized and has darkened the general atmosphere of bilateral relations,” said Maria Zakharova, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Moscow, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Mr. Lugovoi, now a member of Parliament in Russia and the recipient of a medal from Mr. Putin, said the accusation that he had poisoned Mr. Litvinenko was “absurd,” Interfax reported, and a Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said the Litvinenko case “is not among the topics that interest us.”

The British police have accused Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun of murder, charges they deny, and Russia has refused to extradite them, saying such a move is banned by its Constitution.

The authorities in Britain have said traces of the isotope left by the two men created a so-called polonium trail for investigators to follow once scientists had identified the toxic substance used to poison Mr. Litvinenko. The trail led through airplane seats and hotel rooms, offices and restaurants, even a soccer stadium.

Sir Robert wrote in his report that he believed that the two men knew they were using a deadly poison, but he suggested that they might not have been aware “precisely what the chemical that they were handling was, or the nature of all its properties.”

The inquiry, which began almost a year before the final report was released, had been initiated after dogged efforts by Ms. Litvinenko to press for a full accounting of her husband’s death.

俄間諜倫敦暴斃 普亭直接下令？

英國法官21日發表調查報告指出，2006年11月俄羅斯前間諜李維南科在英國遭毒殺案，應為俄國聯邦安全局（FSB）所策畫，而且很可能由俄國總統普亭直接下令。李維南科在倫敦一家飯店不察喝下含有放射性同位素釙－210的茶後，中毒身亡，因一如電影小說情節而轟動國際。

報告長達326頁。調查委員會主委歐文爵士在倫敦法院大樓說，他非常確定，李維南科（Alexander V. Litvinenko）的茶中含有致命劑量的釙－210（polonium 210）。歐文並說，有「很大的可能性」是FSB下令殺人，而普亭「很可能批准了」這項行動。

英國首相卡麥隆辦公室稱報告結果「極端令人不安」，政府未宣布任何制裁行動，但召見了莫斯科駐倫敦大使，並下令凍結兩名涉嫌下毒者資產。

李維南科是FSB前身、「國家安全委員會」（KGB）幹員，1998年為了單位改革當面怒嗆普亭，因此埋下殺機。他2000年逃離俄國赴英，其後點名批判普亭與FSB不遺餘力。

歐文說，李維南科的行為「被視為背叛FSB」，「俄羅斯國內組織與個人均有強烈動機，對李維寧科採取行動，包括取他性命」。

李維南科中毒3周後因急性輻射症候群不治， 死時43歲。他死前指控普亭下令殺人，這是首次有人正式將毒殺案與普亭連結。

俄國之前一再否認涉案，俄國外交部發言人表示，俄國政府不認為歐文發表的調查結論客觀公正。她說：「我們很遺憾一樁純粹的刑案遭到政治化，且使雙方關係整體氛圍蒙上陰影。」

歐文說，調查報告顯示，下毒者應是魯戈沃（Andrei Lugovoi）和柯夫頓（ Dmitry Kovtun）。俄國拒讓英國引渡這兩名主嫌。

魯戈沃是現任國會議員，享有起訴豁免權。魯戈沃告訴俄國國際傳真社，英國對他的指控「荒謬至極」，「今天公布的調查結果，無非再次證實英國抱持反俄立場，而且不願將李維南科真正死因公諸於世」。

李維南科遺孀瑪莉娜在法院大樓外說：「我的丈夫臨終前指控普亭的話已獲英國法院證實，我感到十分欣慰」。她呼籲卡麥隆採取緊急措施，驅逐俄國駐倫敦大使館內的情報作業人員，並對俄國施加經濟制裁，對普亭等人祭出旅遊禁令。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/world/europe/alexander-litvinenko-poisoning-inquiry-britain.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/world/20160122/c22litvinenko/zh-hant/

Video：Britain's home secretary summoned the Russian ambassador over a report about the 2006 killing of Alexander V. Litvinenko, while Russian officials criticized the inquiry.
http://nyti.ms/1RBS44w

Video：Marina Litvinenko called for sanctions and a travel ban against President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and the former head of the country’s spy service, who, a British inquiry said, “probably approved” the killing of her husband.
http://nyti.ms/1OAjHaF

Video：Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said he has not ruled out further sanctions against Russia after the report on Alexander V. Litvinenko’s death.
http://nyti.ms/1UfHVZj

2016-01-22．聯合報．A17．國際．編譯王麗娟