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Moscow's Long Shadow

November 23, 2016

In 2006 former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko died of radioactive polonium poisoning in London. Leads point to the Russian secret service as having commissioned the killing.

https://p.dw.com/p/2T6Ru
Image: ZDF

Alexander Litvinenko died on 23 November 2006 in a London hospital. Three weeks previous he had been poisoned with radioactive polonium. The alleged assassins were quickly identified: two businessmen with links to the Russian secret service. The British legal system issued international arrest warrants but Moscow refuses to hand over the two suspects.
Now in an official hearing in London, which Litvinenko’s widow has spent years campaigning for, many details of the killing have come to light. Evidence suggests that President Putin at least knew of the murder. But did the Russian state order the elimination of the former KGB officer as his friends claim because he had accused Putin of cooperating with the Russian mafia? The case still leaves many questions unanswered.