Andrei Lugovoi during his press conference in Moscow on May 31, 2007.
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Andrei Lugovoi Gives His Version of Events
// Accuses British Intelligence, Boris Berezovsky, and Russian Mafia
Of the Murder of Alexander Litvinenko
Russian businessmen Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, who have been accused, respectively, by Great Britain of the murder of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko and by Germany of the illegal trafficking of radioactive materials, gave their version yesterday of the poisoning of Mr. Litvinenko in London. According to them, the participants in Mr. Litivinenko's murder could include the British intelligence services, exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, and allies of mafia boss Zakhary Kalashov. The Russian prosecutor general's office and the FSB said that they will investigate the validity of these claims. Meanwhile, Alexander Litvinenko's father told Kommersant that his son had repeated the names of his murderers on his deathbed: Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun.
The British Special Services and Their Agents
For the press conference, which was broadcast live around the world, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun turned up twenty minutes late, ducking into the room in a circle of bodyguards from Tenth Wave, Mr. Lugovoi's company. After he had taken his seat behind a bank of microphones, Mr. Lugovoi began to read from a page of prepared remarks. "Today I am ready to make a statement that should shed some light on the murky political history in which the British special services and their agents, Berezovsky and the deceased Litvinenko, play a lead role," he said. According to Mr. Lugovoi, last spring he met in London with Alexander Litvinenko, who told him that he had been an agent of the British special services for several years. Mr. Litvinenko purportedly brought representatives of MI6 into contact with Boris Berezovsky, who agreed to pass secret documents to British Intelligence in exchange for political asylum. "Boris Abramovich [Berezovsky] gave the British some documents from the Russian Security Council (Mr. Berezovsky was the deputy secretary of the Security Council from October 1996 to November 1997) and also became an agent of MI6. After that, the question of being granted asylum and receiving British citizenship became nothing but a technicality," said Mr. Lugovoi.
According to Mr. Lugovoi, Alexander Litvinenko suggested that he work for MI6 as well by collecting compromising information about Russian politicians, including President Putin. He claims he was told that "the road to Great Britain would be closed and business channels in Europe blocked" for him if he did not agree. In order to carry out his assignments, he was given a mobile telephone and a copy of Yevgeny Grishkovets' book Rubashka, with which he was supposed to encode his communications with London, "like in spy movies." Mr. Lugovoi, however, claims that he "was taught to defend the Motherland, not betray it," and he maintains that he did not gather compromising intelligence about the president, though he retained his contacts with Mr. Litvinenko. Also in 2006, Mr. Lugovoi introduced Mr. Litvinenko to Dmitry Kovtun, who said yesterday that he had repeatedly heard from Mr. Litvinenko that he was dissatisfied with Boris Berezovsky, who had reduced his "support payments from 5,000 pounds a month to 1,500." According to Lugovoi and Kovtun, Alexander Litvinenko had even intended to blackmail Berezovsky, using documents about his "illegal activities on UK territory." Mr. Kovtun added, "Litvinenko said that he decided all sorts of matters in the Caucasus" and had been several times to the Pankisi Gorge, a hotbed of separatist rebellion in Georgia. "Litvinenko was in Istanbul at the behest of Ahmed Zakayev, where he met with several representatives of Chechen rebel groups," agreed Mr. Lugovoi, adding that "Litvinenko was also in Nalchik," a town in southern Russia where an attack on Russian security forces on October 13, 2005 resulted in the deaths of at least 136 people, including, according to Andrei Lugovoi, 78 FSB officers.
Picking up the main thread of his narrative, Andrei Lugovoi claimed that neither he nor Dmitry Kovtun had a motive to kill Alexander Litvinenko, but that Boris Berezovsky and the British special services did: they wanted to liquidate an agent who talked too much. Mr. Lugovoi also did not rule out the involvement of the Russian mafia, which "could have avenged itself on Litvinenko in such a barbaric manner" for his cooperation with the Spanish police after the former FSB officer helped them arrest the mafia boss Zakhary Kalashov.
Lugovoi and Kovtun have no intention of going to Britain or Germany to answer the charges in person, but they claim they are ready to appear in a Russian court. Andrei Lugovoi alleged that the actions of the British Crown Prosecution Service have cost him $25 million in moral and material damages and that he was "obliged to sell his stake in a factory in Ryazan Oblast that manufactures non-alcoholic beverages" as a result of the accusations.
A highly-placed source close to the Russian leadership told Kommersant yesterday that "[the press conference] was all some kind of nonsense, they're rummaging around for something and then they just say whatever… It's just garbage!" However, the Russian prosecutor general's office and the FSB said yesterday that they will follow up on the leads provided by Mr. Lugovoi as part of "their own" investigation into the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.
"Sasha said, 'Lugovoi and Kovtun poisoned me'"
The "nonsense" that so disgusted the source in the Kremlin could refer not only to the suspicions voiced by Lugovoi and Kovtun but also to the "facts" cited by the two businessmen as proof of their version of events, which seriously undermine any trust in what they have to say. It is generally known that, after he emigrated to the UK in 2000, Alexander Litvinenko could not travel back to Russia, meaning that he could not possibly have participated in the attack in Nalchik in 2005. The prosecutor's office in the Russian autonomous region of Kabardino-Balkaria, of which Nalchik is the capital, told Kommersant that the name Litvinenko does not appear on their list of suspects. The office also formally denied that any FSB officers were among the dead: according to official reports, 92 militants, 35 law enforcement officers, and 12 civilians were killed in the attack.
Ahmed Zakayev, on whose orders Alexander Litvinenko supposedly carried out missions in Istanbul, the Pankisi Gorge, and Nalchik, told Kommersant, "Sasha wasn't there on my orders or for any other reason." "Mr. Lugovoi could not professionally fulfill the task of liquidating Alexander Litvinenko; he left a trail, and now he and the people who ordered this crime are attempting to bluff their way out," believes Mr. Zakayev. "At first the Russian special services explained the polonium-210 by saying that Litvinenko was supposedly acting on my behest to arm Chechen rebels with a dirty bomb," he recalled.
Alexander Litvinenko's father Walter dismissed the alleged involvement of the British special services in the death of his son as nonsense. "I spent several days and nights with Sasha in the hospital, and he told me all the details about his friends and enemies, about who killed him and how," said the elder Mr. Litvinenko. "He said nothing about the British special services, and, as a rule, doomed men do not lie," he added. Walter Litvinenko also believes that the suspicions aimed at Boris Berezovsky do not hold water: "Boris is a warm-hearted man, and he always helped my son. They were good friends, and I will never believe that they could do anything bad to each other." Speaking of Alexander Litvinenko in the days before he died, Walter Litvinenko remembered that his son had repeatedly named his killers: "Sasha said, 'Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun poisoned me, I trusted them, and they deceived me.'"
Boris Berezovsky denied any ties to MI6 and told Kommersant that he has nothing against Mr. Lugovoi personally, saying that Mr. Lugovoi ceased to be an independent agent a long time ago: "During my last telephone call with him, I became convinced that someone was standing behind him and dictating, and Andrei was just parroting the words," he said. Berezovsky claims to feel sorry for Andrei Lugovoi, who turned out to be "a pawn in a big political battle and the executor of this crime" and who now has a sword dangling over his head.
Businessman Alimjan Tokhtakhunov, a close associate of Zakhary Kalashov, told Kommersant that while he believes Alexander Litvinenko "of course would have had to earn his political asylum in England, maybe by working as an agent [of MI6]," the idea that anyone from Kalashov's circle was involved in his murder is a "fairytale."
The British Foreign Office declined to comment on Andrei Lugovoi's statements accusing agents of MI6 of complicity in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. A spokesperson said only that the case is purely a criminal matter that has nothing to do with espionage or the intelligence services. The Foreign Office also noted that the Russian authorities have been served extradition papers for Mr. Lugovoi, who is wanted to stand trial in the UK. Yesterday a spokesperson from the US National Security Council said that the US supports the British request, given that the matter involves a very serious crime.
Vladislav Trifonov and Musa Muradov
All the Article in Russian as of June 01, 2007
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