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Geiger counters don't lie: where they hit, there is more radioactivity than is natural. The same applies to alpha detectors, special measuring devices that can be used to determine how much α radiation there is somewhere. The values at the table in the corner niche of the Pine Bar in the luxurious Millennium Hotel in London-Mayfair were enormously inflated, and only higher on the right side of one of the cocktail chairs. In three more of the elegant upholstered chairs, two of which were at a table in the middle of the room and the last in the next niche when measured by experts from the British Health Authority, significantly increased α-radiation was still detected.
And that even after more than four weeks. The investigators were certain that that was how long it took between the contamination and its documentation. On November 1, 2006, at around 4 p.m., Alexander Litvinenko, a renegade employee of the Russian security service FSB and now recognized as a political refugee in Great Britain, sat down at the very table in the Pine Bar in the middle of which the second highest radiation level was later found. And apparently in the very chair whose side cushions still shined the most on the inside a month later.
22 days after his visit to the Pine Bar, on November 23, 2006 to be precise, Litvinenko died in the intensive care unit of University College Hospital in London as a result of massive radioactive radiation. The autopsy found that he had a lethal dose of the powerful alpha emitter polonium 210 in his body.
On the one hand, the radioactive heavy metal is formed naturally when uranium 238 decays; on the other hand, it can be produced artificially by irradiating the element bismuth with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. Like most alpha emitters, polonium 210 is actually harmless. Even the top layer of skin or a single sheet of paper stops the α-particles.
Therefore, Polonium 210 can be safely carried in a sealed container with you. However, if polonium 210 enters the body through swallowing or inhalation, or even through an open wound, it becomes one of the worst poisons known: just twelve millionths of a gram of polonium is fatal.
The alpha radiation from polonium 210 only has a range of around 0.04 millimeters in the human body. Within this radius, however, the high-energy decaying atoms bombard the surrounding cells and destroy them. Irreparable damage is caused to the kidneys, liver and spleen in particular within a very short time; there is no treatment method.
This is exactly what happened to Alexander Litvinenko after the meeting in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel. Through the mediation of the entrepreneur Vladislav Sokolenko, he met his two compatriots Dmitry Kovtun, a “Bisnesman”, and the former KGB and FSB officer Andrei Lugovoi. Apparently they wanted to talk about a “business deal”.
That same evening, Litvinenko suddenly felt sick - and his symptoms worsened rapidly: he showed symptoms such as frequent, violent vomiting, nausea, severe abdominal pain and shortness of breath. These were clear indications of poisoning. From November 3, 2006, he was in the intensive care unit of the regional Barnet Hospital, and two weeks later he was transferred to the specialized clinic at University College London.
Scotland Yard investigators interviewed him here from November 18th to 20th, 2006. The doctors still suspected severe poisoning with the heavy metal thallium, but it was already clear that the patient would hardly survive. This resulted in the rare situation in which the criminal investigators were able to question a murder victim about the alleged perpetrators.
Litvinenko spent the morning of November 1st at home. At around 12.30 p.m. he took the bus and subway to central London and arrived at Oxford Circus after just over an hour. From here he went to the office of his acquaintance Dean Attew, with whom he was for half an hour at 2 p.m. Litvinenko then went on to Piccadilly, where he had arranged another short meeting at 3 p.m. with the obscure Italian Mario Scaramella, who was sometimes considered an intelligence expert, sometimes a Russian contact in Western Europe, sometimes a braggart. With Scaramella he went to the sushi restaurant “itsu”, where they stayed for about half an hour.
At around 3:40 p.m. Litvinenko went to the Millennium Hotel, where he arrived after just under fifteen minutes and went straight to the Pine Bar; he was expected here. According to the British government's investigation, it was Andrei Lugovoi who insisted on the meeting. “The forensic and other evidence strongly suggests that Mr. Litvinenko drank green tea poisoned with polonium during this meeting,” the investigative report states.
According to Scotland Yard's findings, Lugovoi met him and led him to the table in the corner booth of the Pine Bar. According to Litvinenko, they chatted before Kovtun joined them; the FSB renegade sat with his back to the Pine Bar - in his interrogation he said: "Immediately a waiter came towards us... I couldn't see him because he was coming from behind."
Since there was still a pot of green tea on the table, as it should be in a top-class hotel: in the middle of the table, both declined. Lugovoi only asked for a “fresh cup”. "I poured myself some tea from the teapot, although there was only a little left at the bottom and it only made half a cup. It was green tea without sugar and already cold: for some reason I didn't like it," Litvinenko reported to the British criminal police interrogator: "Well, almost cold tea without sugar, and I stopped drinking it." He sipped the half-full cup maybe three or four times and didn't even drink it. The meeting ended after almost half an hour.
According to Scotland Yard, Lugovoi had not urged his guest to drink the tea, but had said something like this: "If you want something, order some yourself, but we'll be leaving soon. If you want tea, there's some left here."
Undoubtedly, the tea in the pot, which stood in the middle of the table in the niche of the Pine Bar, was massively laced with polonium 210: the dishes could be identified weeks later based on the ongoing α-radiation. There was also a “hotspot” in the middle of the bar table that was emitting strong radiation (although not dangerous to health).
In the Pine Bar, unlike many other areas of the Millennium Hotel, there were no surveillance cameras. Lugovoi, a long-time intelligence officer, would have probably noticed this at a glance, unless he already knew it.
During the investigation into Litvinenko's death, high levels of polonium 210 contamination were also found in room 848 at the London Sheraton Hotel, where Lugovoi had stayed on the nights of October 25, 26 and 27, 2006. Likewise in room 382 of the Millennium Hotel, where Kowtun checked in on November 1st. Apparently the poisoning in the Pine Bar was the (at least) second attempt to kill Litvinenko.
“I am certain that Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun put the polonium 210 in the teapot at the Pine Bar on November 1, 2006. I am also certain that they did so with the intention of poisoning Mr. Litvinenko,” says the summary of the investigative report by Sir Robert Owen, the judge who investigated the Litvinenko case for the British Parliament and his 2016 case Final report submitted.
Rarely has a murder case from the secret service environment been solved much more clearly based on circumstantial evidence. Only one question remains: why and on whose orders was Alexander Litvinenko poisoned?
Christopher Nehring, historian and intelligence expert, gives the answer: "Litvinenko had worked for the Russian secret services KGB and FSB for over 20 years, including in combat operations. Then he switched sides and defected to the British secret service MI6 in 2003. From then on, he made a name for himself primarily through accusations against the Russian president, from pedophilia to attack plans."
Of course, Russian leader Vladimir Putin repeatedly rejects this accusation. But the denials are bloodless and are counteracted, for example, by the awarding of an order for “services to the state” to Andrei Lugovoi in 2015.
Sven Felix Kellerhoff is senior editor at WELTgeschichte. The GDR and the Federal Republic are among his main topics. He has dealt with secret service history in many facets, including as co-author of the book “Capital of Spies”.
