Alexander Litvinenko Wiki

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Who was Alexander Litvinenko ?

Alexander Litvinenko dies of coronavirus complications at 56, 14 years after mixing exile’s tea with polonium in London

A former KGB agent accused of poisoning Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London has died of Covid.

Britain alleged that Dmitry Kovtun, 56, mixed the former spy and British citizen’s green tea with polonium in 2006.

Kovtun and his partner Andrei Lugovoy had met Litvinenko on November 1, 2006, the day he fell ill, at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair.

Traces of radioactive substance polonium-210 were found on the seat of the plane that Kovtun took home from London to Hamburg.

Evidence

Evidence of their involvement in the sensational murder was found in Kovtun’s car and in numerous places the couple traveled, including offices and the Emirates Stadium.

German authorities also found traces of polonium-210 on a sofa in his ex-wife’s flat.

After three weeks in a London hospital bed, Litvinenko died on November 23.

He was the world’s first confirmed victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome.

A longtime critic of President Putin, Litvinenko accused the dictator of ordering his assassination.

Family

Alexander’s wife, Marina, who married then-FSB agent Alexander in 1994 and had a son, Anatoly, with him, claimed £3m in punitive damages for his death and loss of earnings.

As part of the ruling, the judges said Marina was not entitled to money spent on “expensive lawyers”, which had at one point included Kier Starmer, before he became leader of the Labor Party.

Litvinenko fell out with the FSB leadership in the late 1990s when he backed employer and oligarch Boris Berezovsky against claims that the service ordered his assassination.

Quick Facts

• One of two KGB men tied to infamous tea assassination dies in Moscow hospital
• Anti-Putin former spy Litvinenko, a British citizen, drank tea laced with polonium
• UK court found in 2016 that radiation killing was ordered by Putin’s FSB allies
• Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy met Litvinenko in hotel shortly before death
• Putin refused to extradite pair after investigators found polonium on plane seats