Litvinenko inquiry hears alleged killer may have been coached by FSB
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Version 0 of 1. A businessman who worked with Andrei Lugovoi, one of the alleged killers of Alexander Litvinenko, told British police he believed that his colleague was being coached by the Russian security services in the weeks after the murder, the high court has heard. Vladimir Voronoff, a Russian-born media owner based in London, told officers investigating the November 2006 killing that Lugovoi phoned him twice from Moscow the following month, the inquiry into Litvinenko’s death heard. In a statement to police in January 2007 about their phone conversations, Voronoff said: “Lugovoi does not appear to me to be 100% under the influence of the FSB [the Russian security service]. However I think he is being coached by them.” He also told officers that Lugovoi had told him he knew that radioactive contamination had been spread in London on dates prior to 1 November, the date on which Litvinenko was poisoned, but said he had signed a document swearing not to say anything more. Asked by Ben Emmerson QC, for the dead man’s widow Marina, who he believed had asked Lugovoi to sign the document, Voronoff said: “You can use the collective term the [Russian] government.” The inquiry heard that Voronoff told police that he believed Lugovoi would have been regarded as a traitor for speaking out about the killing, “and as a former FSB officer Lugovoi would definitely appreciate the consequences to his family members of such actions”. Voronoff said he met Lugovoi in the late 1990s through the billionaire oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili, both of whom were close friends. In early 2006 he recommended Lugovoi to provide security services for a London-based company, Continental Petroleum Limited (CPL), which was seeking to exploit lucrative oilfields in western Siberia. The company had recently become the victim of a conspiracy between corrupt lawyers, police officers and judges to seize control of the oilfields, the court heard, and Lugovoi was “a specialist in dealing with such issues”. Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, also accused of Litvinenko’s murder, flew to London for business meetings a number of times in October and November 2006, and on 1 November attended a meeting at CPL’s offices hours before they are alleged to have slipped Litvinenko a lethal dose of the radioactive isotope polonium-210. Both men deny murder. Alexander Shadrin, CPL’s acting CEO, told the inquiry he had threatened to resign if the company used Lugovoi’s security firm, believing its proposed approach – to identify the corrupt individuals and persuade them to “back off” – to be unethical. “If you’re dealing with organised criminals, they are only going to back off for one or two reasons, either because they are threatened by somebody stronger or more powerful than them, or because they are paid off or bribed,” Emmerson said. “I think they would look for the first option,” said Shadrin. Shadrin told the court that although he had not used Lugovoi’s security services and had only commissioned a report from him, he paid him $200,000 (£129,000) because while “he couldn’t actually help us a lot, probably he could make our situation worse”. “You were worried, putting it shortly, if you didn’t pay him … he was likely to take revenge,” asked Emmerson. “I was cautious,” said Shadrin. He told the court that Lugovoi and Kovtun contacted him after Litvinenko’s death to insist on their innocence, but he told them he could do no further work with them. The inquiry continues. |