Hearing of Alexander Litvinenko’s death nods at ‘new’ information

Death of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko possibly linked to Russia and Britain, following Thursday’s hearing...

12:22 22 September 2012

A preliminary hearing in to the death of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, 43, took place last week ahead of the inquest which will being early next year. It saw claims from the late Litvinenko’s widow that allegedly Russia may have been involved in his death.

 

Mr. Litvinenko is thought to have been poisoned at a London hotel in November 2006 while he was seeking asylum in the UK, and according to some reports his widow, Marina, is urging the case to be solved to find out if her husband was a victim of crime.

 

Her counsel, Ben Emmerson QC, is quoted by The Independent saying at the hearing that if the Russian government was involved with Mr. Litvinenko’s passing it would be an “act of state-sponsored nuclear terrorism.”

 

He said: “If that hypothesis were to be evidentially substantiated, this would be an act of state-sponsored nuclear terrorism on the streets of London.”

 

Scotland Yard, who have been looking in to the case as to whether the man was poisoned, are understood to be looking at whether Mr. Litvinenko was in contact with MI6 or MI5 before he died.

 

According to some reports, Thursday’s hearing supposedly saw some officials requesting for certain intelligence not to be made public.

 

The BBC quote Hugh Davies, the counsel to the inquest, with regards to this matter: “This redaction, of course, should not be taken as indicating one way or the other whether Mr Litvinenko did indeed have any such contact.”

 

Details relating to the inquest can be found on a website which has been launched, and reportedly PM David Cameron recently met the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, while on his latest visit to the UK.