Britain: Poisoning Inquest Constrained

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/europe/british-poisoning-inquest-constrained.html

Version 0 of 1.

A coroner overseeing a British inquest into the 2006 poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian security agent, ruled Friday that he had to exclude evidence on whether the Russian state was involved in the killing. The coroner, Robert Owen, said he accepted an application made by Foreign Secretary William Hague to keep some evidence surrounding the case secret on national security grounds. The decision means that Mr. Owen cannot consider documents relating to allegations about Russia’s role in the agent’s death, as well as material about whether British security officials could have done anything to prevent it. Mr. Litvinenko, who became a critic of the Kremlin, died after drinking tea laced with a radioactive isotope at a London hotel. His family says he was working for Britain’s intelligence services at the time of his death. Britain accuses two Russians of the killing, but Moscow has refused to extradite the men, who both denied the charges. Mr. Owen conceded that trying to continue the inquest without addressing possible Russian state culpability and the actions of British security officials would lead to an “incomplete, inadequate and potentially misleading” inquiry.