Judge Robert Owen, who led a accessible analysis into the 2006 killing of Alexander Litvinenko, said he was assertive that two Russian men had accustomed Litvinenko tea absolute a baleful dosage of polonium-210 during a affair at a London hotel.
He said there was a "strong probability" that Russia's FSB, almsman to the Soviet Union's KGB spy agency, directed the killing and that the operation was "probably approved" by Putin, afresh as now the admiral of Russia.
On his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Putin of acclimation his killing, but this is the aboriginal accessible official account bond the Russian admiral to the crime, and it beatific a air-conditioned blow through U.K.-Russia relations.
Britain summoned the Russian abettor for a castigation Thursday and imposed an asset benumb on the two capital Russian suspects: Andrei Lugovoi, now a Russian lawmaker, and Dmitry Kovtun.
Moscow has consistently acerb denied getting complex in Litvinenko's death, and Russian Foreign Ministry backer Maria Zhakarova said the Russian government did not accede Owen's abstracts cold or impartial.
"There was one ambition from the beginning: aspersion Russia and aspersion its officials," Zhakarova told journalists Thursday in Moscow. She afresh several times that the Litvinenko analysis was neither accessible nor transparent, claiming it had angry into a "shadow boob theater."
Litvinenko, a above FSB agent, fled to Britain in 2000 and became a articulate analyzer of Russia's aegis account and of Putin, whom he accused of links to organized crime. Owen said Litvinenko "was admired as accepting betrayed the FSB" with his actions, and said "there were able motives for organizations and individuals aural the Russian state" to annihilate him.
Marina Litvinenko, the spy's widow, said she was "very admiring that the words my bedmate batten on his deathbed if he accused Mr. Putin accept been accepted by an English court."
She aswell alleged for tougher action, advancement British Prime Abbot David Cameron to belch Russian intelligence agents operating in Britain and appoint bread-and-butter sanctions and biking bans on Putin and added admiral affiliated to what her lawyer, Ben Emmerson, alleged "a mini-act of nuclear agitation on the streets of London."
"It's absurd that the prime abbot would do annihilation in the face of the anathema findings," Marina Litvinenko told reporters.
Britain responded to the address with able words — admitting its ambit for able activity is limited.
U.K.-Russian relations accept remained arctic back the killing of Litvinenko, who was accepted British citizenship anon afore his death, and worsened with Russia's captivation in the agitator angry in Ukraine. But the inquiry's address comes as the two countries are carefully aggravating to plan calm adjoin the Islamic Accompaniment accumulation in Syria, and neither wants a above new rift.
British Home Secretary Theresa May said the captivation of the Russian accompaniment was "a arrant and unacceptable aperture of the a lot of axiological credo of all-embracing law and affable behavior" — but not a surprise. She appear asset freezes adjoin suspects Lugovoi and Kovtun, and said Interpol had issued notices calling for their arrest if they catholic abroad. Russia refuses to abandon the two men.
Lugovoi is now a affiliate of the Russian parliament, which bureau he is accustomed from case in his country. In an account Thursday with the Associated Press, he alleged the British analysis a "spectacle."
"I anticipate that — yet afresh — Great Britain has apparent that annihilation that involves their political interests, they'll accomplish a top priority," he said. "These announcements from the British Assembly absolutely discredit the British acknowledged arrangement — absolutely — in the eyes of any sensible, accustomed person."
Lugovoi aswell claimed he would accept admired to affirm at the analysis but "was not allowed." The adjudicator said both Lugovoi and Kovtun beneath to accord evidence.
Kovtun, now declared as a businessman, said the abstracts were based on "false evidence" presented in bankrupt hearings.
"The crazy affirmation is calmly refuted," the Tass account bureau appear him as saying.
Owen — a retired High Cloister adjudicator appointed by the government to arch a accessible analysis into the annihilation — heard from dozens of assemblage during months of accessible hearings endure year and aswell saw abstruse British intelligence evidence.
Announcing his allegation at London's Royal Courts of Justice, Owen said "there can be no agnosticism that Alexander Litvinenko was berserk by Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun" in the Pine Bar of London's affluence Millennium Auberge on Nov. 1, 2006. He died three weeks after of astute radiation syndrome.
In his 326-page report, Owen said based on the affirmation he had seen, the operation to annihilate Litvinenko was "probably" accustomed by then-FSB arch Nikolai Patrushev, now arch of Putin's aegis council, and by Putin.
The adjudicator laid out the cutting accurate affirmation adjoin Lugovoi and Kovtun, including a aisle of radiation that continued from the auberge teapot to the bore in Kovtun's allowance and even the Emirates stadium, area Lugovoi abounding a soccer game.
He said the case for Russian accompaniment captivation was amplified but strong. Owen said Litvinenko had "personally targeted Admiral Putin himself with awful claimed accessible criticism," affiliated himself with Putin's opponents and was believed to be alive for British intelligence.
Litvinenko himself said he was alive for Britain's spy services, admitting British authorities accept never accepted it.
Owen said the adjustment of killing, with radioactive poison, fit with the deaths of several added opponents of Putin and his government, and acclaimed that Putin had "supported and protected" Lugovoi back the killing, even application him a badge for casework to the nation.
While there was no absolute proof, Owen said it was "likely" the FSB arch would accept approved Putin's approval for an operation to annihilate Litvinenko.
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