State Sponsored Murder: The Shocking Story Of Alexander Litvinenko | KGB Killers | Real History

Spies The Rao of alleged Russian interference is showing no sign of a beating covert operations Russia's military forces invade Ukraine rumors of dark influence one of President Putin's critics lies dead as the world wonders how far Russia will go there's a clue in the shopping case from a decade ago its full story still Untold the murder of a British citizen on British soil using the deadliest poison known to man state-sponsored killing in London by means of radioactivity is quite extraordinary 10 years on Alexander littenyenko's killings are still at Large and for his family no justice did the Russian state do it I'll just let the evidence speak for itself the detectives who investigated the murder have never before spoken but now they Widow and the sun he left behind tell the inside story for the first time it's not only about investigation of crime it's a right Story how to be human it's a story that reads like a cold war crime thrill but is darker than any fiction its order can be given by only [Music] [Music] remember sitting in my office on the 15th floor of Scotland Yard when an officer came in and the story he told was quite extraordinary there was a man lying in the hospital bed in North London who was claiming that he was a former KGB officer and that he had been poisoned the patient who'd given his name as Edwin Carter had been admitted two weeks earlier it was explained to us that Edwin Carter was seriously ill they didn't know what was wrong with him [Music] the patient had ulcers in his throat and he could not eat or drink he believed he'd been poisoned with the heavy metal thallium it was consistent with some of his signs and symptoms so for example he'd lost his hair his blood cancer dropped he was very anxious and seemed very preoccupied in trying to make the point that something illegal had been done and in the absence of them being able to give us that guarantee I decided that we should start getting his account just after midnight the police started recording his interview he began with an astonishing claim my name is Edwin Carter I am British citizen I have in Russian I have a name Alexander litchenyanka I am former KGB FSB officer my rank Lieutenant Colonel my position Deputy head of section top secret Department of FSB of course at that time we had no way of knowing whether what Edwin Carter was saying was true can I ask you to tell us what you think has happened to you I have no doubt that they poisoned me all that has remained for me it's it's to prove this with medical examination if you could imagine someone who's quite ill potentially hallucinating and then starts to tell people and unravel his story that he's not really a pink Carter he's actually a former KGB Colonel and he's been poisoned by Vladimir Putin's orders you can understand that people might have met that suggestion with some disbelief but Carter did offer the police one concrete lead the number of a contact he claimed to have had regular meetings with at a London Bookshop on 31st October at about 4 pm eating a range a person about whom I really would like to talk here because I have some commitments you can contact the person on that loan telephone number when the police call the number A Man known only as Martin came to the hospital Martin and MI6 officer confirmed the patient was Alexander or Sasha letvanyenko a former KGB agent now advising MI6 on Russian organized crime Scotland Yard realized this would be no ordinary investigation let's try and understand why he's ill let's try and get a story from him he was still able to talk was it a criminal mystery or medical mystery find out which Camp it fell into if it was medical mystery nothing diverse criminal we were going to be busy foreign ers I grew up in North caucuses it's near chechnya after school I've been recruited to Soviet Union Army in 1987 I sent to KGB for 11 years I be an officer of KGB I met Sasha in 1993 very funny very easy talking very young looking very handsome and a very strong he worked under investigation of very serious crime but in sight of Russia after 10 years service litwinenko was promoted to a highly classified unit 1997 I my department has Duty killing political and high businessman person without judge verdict in the last things what he was asked to do to kill Boris beresovski an adviser to Boris Yeltsin berazovsky had masterminded his re-election in 1996. letvanenko claimed he worked for a secret murder Squad tasked with barazowsky's assassination after I had this order I said to my boss I refused after this kgv open operation case against me and oppress me I love Sasha for feeling not to stand if he thinks something not right in 1998 president Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin as the Director of the KGB now rename the FSB lipenenko raised his concerns about the abuse of power with his new boss Sasha said I'm going to see new director of Vladimir Putin I say what you're going to say I will tell him everything what I know about corruption I have meeting but Sasha mentioned immediately was very soft handshake material about criminal inside FSB Putin took obviously opposite side later that Year let the Yanko and a handful of colleagues took the extraordinary step of blowing the whistle on state corruption at a press conference in Moscow would be limitations when I asked Sasha what might happen with us after this press conference he said Marina we have two ways one way they will kill me and another way they will arrest me litanyenko was arrested and spent over a year in jail in 2000 he was released and fled the country safe my wife and son ask political Asylum [Music] despite being in great pain he continued to answer police questions for more than nine hours over three days and nights he never ever asked for rest he just said just please we need to work [Music] the clock ticking on on Paul Alexander that think of his life the idea was for investigators to talk to him in as much detail in the short time he had left to elicit everything he knew because you weren't going to get a second chance to take a witness statement from him up to now only a handful of people had seen Alexander lippienko in hospital his wife Marina released a photo to show the world the impact of the poisoning and I want people will see what they might do against people photographs showing his dramatic decline in health were released this evening as Scott and yard said it's counter-terrorism unit was now leading an intensive investigation [Music] there's an iconic picture of sessions I called him it carries quite a lot of emotion for me and he did for the team at the time and what he doesn't capture is it doesn't capture the incredible suffering that he was in it doesn't capture the fact his throat was all blistered and you know he couldn't swallow could hardly talk he was in diabolical pain kill knew that the heavy metal thallium was a poison of choice for the KGB when he was diagnosed it was poisoned now it was like a knowledge we know what happened to him before that he became worse but nobody can explain why the problem was that though it appeared lit than theenko had been poisoned no one could say exactly what with we were pretty confident that it was not going to be thallium you know that left us with nothing because all of the other heavy metals that we'd looked for which are commonly used as poisons the screen for those was also negative [Music] with no medical explanation for lit vignenko's decline the police sought other ways to move the investigation forward postmortem is one of the most valuable Tools in informing murder inquiries and Sasha was obviously living and so I wanted to do the equivalent of a living post-mortem on Sasha do everything we can as if he died to try and find out have we got any puncture rooms look at all his samples look at everything examine him head to toe see if we can find yeah that trigger that reason that's led to his illness could a chemotherapy drug have been given to him could another heavy metal have been a corporate and then the idea of some radioactive substance was discussed one of our experts said well in them in the sassus you're in we found a tiny Spike of polonium but it's probably an anomaly in the plastic container so I'm sitting there and um obviously we've all grown up watching James Bond we all know plutonium we all know uranium so I say polonium don't you mean plutonium so this fell a very very tolerant races no Clive I'm in polonium 210. what's polonium-210 that's the most toxic substance known to men okay how do we find out a liter of litanyenko's urine was sent to the high security Atomic weapons establishment at all the Marston but the tests would take almost 24 hours to complete meanwhile enko's life was slipping away for me it was not ant yet it's still enough power to fight for his life he smiled to me and said Rina I love you very much but this time when he said it was just so painful because it looks like he said goodbye [Music] had been fighting the poison for over 21 days and now he was sliding in and out of consciousness the pumping function of his heart deteriorated until on the the night of the 22nd he suddenly collapsed and um went into cardiac arrest when I first arrived somebody had already started resuscitation it was about probably six of us in the room time goes very slowly during cardiac arrest he had about 30 minutes of resuscitation [Music] [Laughter] when we get a patient back it's uh it's a good moment so you've done something right for the patient foreign experts from the atomic weapons establishment called Scotland Yard with the results of litanyenko's urine tests it was a phone call and it's 10 years ago now but I can remember it I remember it like that [Music] it's polonium it's a million times a lethal dose he's dead no he's he's Not Dead He's very poorly but he's still alive like life is dead [Music] nine o'clock on the evening of the 23rd he suffered a further cardiac arrest [Music] we're sorry to announce that Alexander litvan Yanko died at University College Hospital at 9 21 on the 23rd of November 2006. I remember it was quite young Doctor Who came to us and said unfortunately we tried everything but your husband to just passed away I said can I see him this is of course you can see him and when we came to his room Anatoly was with me everyone saw me my father would get better he would recover and then quite honestly to me personally when he actually died on road 23rd and came to me as a massive shock because it's over like until the final few days I kept thinking he was going to recover [Music] it was a very handsome but more important thing I could hug him in the last time I could kiss him and I could feel his smile [Music] we now know the former Russian spy was poisoned by radioactive polonium and that is a first in the United Kingdom I'd never heard of polonium 210 I know nothing about radioactivity or about radioactive isotopes but it was absolutely clear that this was something completely out of the the ordinary and it just changed the whole nature of what we were dealing with [Music] polonium is extremely rare five thousand times more radioactive than radium and when swallowed just one millionth of a gram is Enough To Kill for Scotland Yard the Intensive Care Unit was now a crime scene it was sealed off with lippanyenko's body to protect both evidence and staff where the murder victim in the body is is always a crime scene however contaminated polonium well no one knew what to do within our safe it was what we have now is a murder inquiry plain and simple you've got to stick to the facts now in this case what that transpired as being was following the polonium Trail around London the places he visited are now being searched and radioactivity have now been referred to as special traces of the substance that's believed to the public is very low I remember coming out of a cobra meeting and there was a whole horde of photographers and reporters outside on the pavement and I remember the voice shouting at me Mr Clark are the public safe I remember thinking to myself I haven't got a clue I don't know the polonium that killed lippanyenko is very difficult to manufacture this is something that is made in a reactor and therefore you have to have access to the products of a reactor and the place where that is made in Russia is a very high security operation indeed so it was perfectly clear I mean that was a real marker of who might be involved [Music] um Scotland Yard now had to work out how the polonium have been brought into the UK and identify the Assassin the clues were to be found in the extraordinary interview lit vignenko had recorded just before his death [Music] this was done by Russian Secret Service because I have knowledge of this system I know that to kill a citizen of another country its order can be given by only one person this person is president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin Focus for me was to look to see who'd had the opportunity to poison him I was surprised at the presence of mind he had as he was working through the possibilities of the various people that he'd met on the 1st of November who's working through it very much with a detective's mind enko told police that the day he fell ill he met with an Italian intelligence analyst meeting scaramella had sought lippanyenko's advice for an Italian parliamentary inquiry into allegations that the KGB had tried to influence the Italian government I must say Sasha police don't eat because we're going to have this special dinner it's the 1st of November it's already six years since we came to UK and the first time when we're British citizen [Music] Mario asked me go eating first restaurant it's a opposite Bond Street He suggests that we should sit somewhere quiet we have something to eat and talk he is very very nervous he started to talking very fast so I said couldn't really understand why the meeting was really important why I've been called day and it afflict his suspicion radar Scotland yards sent an investigation team to itsu restaurant how do you search for Pioneer will you actually search for it with something a bit like a Dirt Devil Hoover because polonium whilst it's radioactive and it's dangerous it emits alpha waves they only go only go about that far and so to detect them you have to be that close to them soon after they got in there remember it's getting a phone call we've got positive indication of Health radiation it's your restaurant it could be on murder venue you could treat it as a glamor clue though let's not be little in the approach to it but Pluto you have a room you have a killer you have a weapon and when you get those things in your envelope you generally solved it foreign scaramella became a person of interest if you're exposed to it what happens is is that you secrete it and you secrete it through sweat and you can't control that secretion so when you secrete it through sweat in fact we can when you touch something you pick something up you touch something we can actually map where you've been scaramella had stayed at the thistle hotel in Victoria [Music] very quickly we established that the hotel that he stayed in wasn't contaminated and Mr scaramella wasn't contaminated at all and so what was the chance of him being involved they were Fair they were fairly remote the why is it true restaurant contaminated [Music] the analysis when it was done goes to show that the worst scammella had been sitting with living inco when they had lunch on November the 1st that wasn't where the contamination was found [Music] out that that actually it was at a different table to the one which scaramello and netanyenko had sat at on the 1st of November you could have taken a view that in the clued envelope itsu restaurant was the venue polonium was the murder weapon thank you very much have a lovely day and suddenly the envelope is ripped up and thrown away [Music] police needed to explain the traces of polonium on the second table aditsu the clues again lay in litanyenko's police interview he had another meeting the day he fell ill after the restaurant where did you go I go to Millennium Hotel on this day I have meeting planned with two Russian people first person Andrei his former KGB officer he had been bodyguard for prime minister of Russia foreign army officer second Lieutenant maybe captain when Sasha was in hospital and when we talked about his suspicious he might be poisoned and I said but who who could do this and he mentioned this meeting with Logan in Millennium Hotel he has come from the bar and say Sasha I am here he says that he must leave for football match so we will talk for 10 15 and no more on the table there is a few cups and also a teapot I pour some tea from from for some reason I didn't like it it it's almost called tea I drink maybe three or four times [Music] and after you drank from the pulp did they don't dry off often drink anything from that pouch no for sure the ingestion eating something was important so there was huge cruising on this and and if it was playing it would be definitive he's saying this Uncle Sasha we shake hands and he go [Music] police turned their attention to the hotel in Mayfair where the two suspects stayed were captured on CCTV going upstairs to the gents toilets traces of polonium were found that match their movements so we'll go with the hypothesis that Mr little boy Mr kofton they had more than something to do with it on the 16th of October Mr lugavoy Mr Colston both came into the country on a ba flight from Moscow they went and stayed it was the Best Western South Revenue polonium was found in that room in the bathroom [Music] then police made their second breakthrough they discovered litvinyenko had an earlier meeting with Luca boy and coughton two weeks before their afternoon tea at the millennium the location itsu sushi bar the table where that sat was the one on which police had already detected traces of polonium got contamination because it's not secondary contamination it was primary contamination as in something bad had happened there [Music] you try to whack your minutes to a restaurant you tried though he had been attacked on the 16th in fact he'd have died as a result of the attack on the 16th it was that significant but it was that robust that it didn't work as quickly as it should after the itsu attack luguboyancofton traveled back to Moscow on a trans zero aircraft we managed to stop that at Heathrow Airport that was emotional because they didn't react all that well to that plane being stopped [Music] the aircraft was checked they did find traces of plane in 210. in retaliation for interfering with the transeroflight the Russian authorities had placed the tugs that pushed the aircraft back from the stands in front of a British Airways jet at Moscow Airport [Music] so it's just kind of tit-for-tat that started to underpin on the political dimensions on this investigation I think it turned out that 36 000 people have been on planes that could have been contaminated fishing found at 12 different locations including two British Airways planes in an investigation stretching right across Europe in pursuit of a radioactive Trail the number of scenes that were unraveling on a day-by-day basis went to about 40 odd scenes and this had been everything from the hotels that the two key suspects had stayed in to places where they'd had meetings together littmanenko appeared to have survived the year to attack on the 16th of October lugavoy returned to London alone nine days later detectives believe he flew in arm to kill they found evidence in the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel we came up with this random way of describing how safe or not something could be and we called it The Runaway Factor the detection devices quote were minging unquote I think that meant there was a huge amount of radiation in that room they'd had to withdraw from the room fairly quickly extremely high levels of radiation in the bathroom sink and pipes LED pleased to believe lugavoy had poured the polonium down the drain [Music] the most nuclear scene that is um I think has it has it had been found in civilian circumstances [Music] and The Runaway Factor there was Usain bolt-esque [Music] lid vignenko had ultimately died as a result of the attack in the Millennium Hotel [Music] but this may have been the last of three attempts by lugavoy and coughton to kill him police were desperate to prove conclusively that lippanyenko had died from polonium poisoning eight days after his death Britain's top pathologist finally examined the body the autopsy was a difficult to dangerous procedure [Music] levels of polonium that were eventually found from the tissues were a hundred fold higher than would be compatible with Life when he opened up all he could see is atrophy of tissue it's essentially sort of just dissolved in a slurry as it were and so it was clear what had been going on the autopsy confirmed lithon yenko's death was a direct result of his ingesting deadly polonium [Music] from fairly early on in the inquiry Andre Loverboy and Dimitri cofton became people of interest and so that is why we wanted to interview them as soon as possible and that meant sending a team of officers to Moscow to do just that the conversation with Peter led to the distinction of Brian tarpey the formal setting for the request tops do you fancy going to Russia I think it was in the toilets on the 15th floor in Wards my boss I said hello Clive um as you would and his immediate response was oh tops for my best man uh what are you doing for the next couple of weeks it's obviously the natural environment for a challenge to be set like that di Brian tarpey's team had been breached by MI6 about what to expect in Moscow the thought of um having to lead a team in Moscow was at first quite daunting there was the obvious warnings about potential honey traps our rooms might be bugged or searched I had left should we say certain traps which would indicate to me that my drawers had been moved or searched yeah the team's first meeting was with the Russian general prosecutor we were welcomed by the deputy Ambassador and the general prosecutor I think there were eight objectives eight things that we wish to achieve while we were there the top two of those would be to interview lugerville and coughton it's then that the conversation became a little more difficult we believed them to be in a place called nuclear Hospital number six he was asking what is this nuclear Hospital number six I've never heard of it this means nothing to me you know we don't know where they are we have got no idea where they are how do you know nuclear Hospital number six was a clinic built to treat the victims of the Chernobyl disaster about five o'clock we received a phone call stating surprisingly he was in hospital number six and this place did exist in less than 10 minutes we were in the van the journey there was quite interesting they drove very quickly to start with they didn't seem to know where they were going themselves and we had to on at least two occasions do u-turns to get back out of the area where we were whether this was to delay us getting to the hospital or not I don't know after two hours driving they arrived at the hospital just before 9 pm the next point of contention we were told under no circumstances would we be allowed to bring any recording devices with us into the hospital and the interview will conclude by 10 o'clock coughton was said to be receiving treatment for exposure to polonium only one Scotland Yard officer was permitted to enter the room it turned out to be a very strange series of events [Music] there was a man in a bed who he was told was Dmitry Crofton the only thing that he could see was the eyes it could have been anyone sat in the bed we'll never know who it was after just 13 minutes the doctor stopped the interview [Music] of the questions that we had wanted to be asked only about half were asked before the time ran out so it really wasn't satisfactory from my perspective [Music] put it simply they were messed about the the Russians kept saying we're cooperating but it was unlike any corporation that I've ever seen the Scotland Yard team had been in Moscow for two days developments in London were about to have an impact on their investigation now it was being treated as a suspicious death but in the last time they are now treating the poisoning of Alexander lippanyenko as murder the intelligence and the political and the Diplomatic Dimensions were all firmly intertwined and so from a very early stage there was going to be a certain amount of finger pointing towards Russia right I was concerned about the impact of that change of status to the team in Russia did it pose a challenge most definitely you're interviewing their Nationals and you're seeing them as a witness and then suddenly you've announced it's a murder it must have been fairly clear that actually there was a a picture was unfolding which I fear the Russian government would not want us to explore foreign after six frustrating days of waiting an interview with the second suspect Andre lugavoy was canceled with short notice the Russians also announced at kofton's Health was declining rapidly hours after giving evidence to investigators in Moscow today Mr kofton reportedly fell into a coma and is in a critical condition from radiation poisoning the investigation had stalled and the team encountered another unexpected problem I remember one evening my officer was complaining of stomach cramp and not being very well earlier the next morning I was to accompany him back to the general prosecutor's office we were offered to you I had no hesitation in saying yes I'd have a cup of tea please so I had the cup of tea and we left I started to feel a little uncomfortable and not wanting to put too fine a point on it I had the shits I have no doubt in my mind that we were probably poisoned but something like gastroenteritis I think that there was a deliberate ploy to weakness physically because we were the we were the decision makers in the team it didn't stop them doing what they did it just meant they had to do it in short bursts the following day tarpy and the team were escorted back to hospital number six to interview the second suspect Andre lugavoy [Music] again we were told that he was a sick patient in the hospital and the interviews would be conducted there we were told that we could not bring any recording devices into the hospital so we were totally reliant on the on the Russians recording this the police were also told the interview would be conducted in Russian because lugavoice spoke no English when Luca boy was interviewed he looked as fit as a fiddle he wasn't bandaged and was there in his own clothes and probably had only just turned up at the hospital I suppose I can tell you what I hoped for I hope for an account that could give us an opportunity to prove or disprove what they said I thought that while this has been recorded so we'll we'll get what it is that's been said and we can compare that to the the notes that have been taken at the end of the interview lugavoy kind of smirked and said good luck with your investigation in English [Music] after two weeks in Moscow the Scotland Yard detectives were ready to return home all that remained was to collect copies of the evidence from the Russian general prosecutor [Music] they agreed that they would just film the evidence had been handed to me I was presented with a bundle of interviews and tapes we took the evidence with us back on the flight back to London the Scotland Yard team arrived back in London the following evening I was very glad to be back in the UK and I was equally glad to be able to hand over the bundle of interviews and tapes the next day tarpy received a phone call from Scotland Yard forensics [Music] it was um one of the forensic management team he was asking was there another Luke avoid tape and and at first I I couldn't understand what what he meant by that and I said no I've I've given you the tapes and I said why I can't remember exactly where I was when I found out from tops that what was probably the most important output from that whole deployment it never made it on the plane the recording of lugavoy's vital interview was missing from the evidence package handed over by the Russian authorities I'd been outmaneuvered like a chess piece by the Russians I was an accident no he didn't tell me that tops or anyone else had been unprofessional it told me we've been done one month after his death Alexander led the nyanko's body was still so radioactive it had to be placed in a lead-lined coffin for burial seeing it was a sum from metal and they said if we decide one day to take this coffin from grave it would be allowed only after 30 years Alexander liptonenko was buried in Highgate Cemetery he was 44 years old police believe that Luca boy and coughton had poison lippanyenko in the Millennium Hotel Mayfair but after being frustrated in Moscow they still needed to build a cast iron Case by proving how the polonium had been administered this expert advice said that there'll be no trace of polonium left on anything that has been washed 42 times the dishwasher don't bother doing the teapots tea cups saucers teaspoons because you'll be wasting your time but all the instincts were yeah go on let's have a go [Music] foreign [Music] deflection on this teapot four scale deflection so what did that mean it meant that there was a smoking teapot it's not same as a Smoking Gun but it was significant [Music] the contamination in the teapot leads of course capably to often boy the police had the last piece of the puzzle and handed the evidence over to the crown prosecution service five months later the CPS formally sought the extradition of Luca boy on a charge of murder our position was the oak often left the country and went to a jurisdiction where they were extraditable we would seek to extradite them Luger boy and coughton denied the allegations in the Russian media foreign became a member of Russia's Parliament giving him immunity from prosecution the Home Secretary Theresa May ruled out a public inquiry fearing it would damage relations with Russia but finally in 2014 and the pressure from the high court she changed her mind foreign death the public inquiry opened at the high court in London for me it was already like I I'm already satisfied because it was very important to bring information to public and Compton poisoned him and you will decide on all of the evidence whether or not they were sponsored by the Russian State some people started to say we're not sure they're going to do anything against Russia and they said they probably will just close this case I'm not going to do anything [Music] finally judge Sir Robert Owen delivered his verdict I have concluded that there is a strong probability that when Mr luguboy poisoned Mr lefonenko he did so under the direction of the FSB I have further concluded that the FSB operation to kill Mr lippenenko was probably approved by Mr petruchev then head of the FSB and also by President Putin [Music] it was very powerful verdict it was named Putin and we've been just like overwhelmed it's a huge Victory and it's a pretty remarkable Victory considering the forces that were behind my father's murder it doesn't mean certain committed this crime going to be sent to the prison but you even you're not in prison but you already punished to wake up and go to sleep to know people knew you are criminal you are murder the investigation had been the most complex dangerous and technically demanding ever undertaken by British law enforcement this was the Metropolitan Police and police in the UK at its best they gave an incredible amount which means a huge amount to me it meant a huge amount for Marina and I couldn't be more proud of of them he was a real man he was not the double agent he was just a human and a real man is a father as a husband good luck take care of course Justice hasn't been done to the fullest extent but when you consider the situation under the circumstances in the way my father was murdered it's pretty amazing we got any semblance of Justice at all have this person in your heart you can leave but anyway your heart has a big hole I believe he's able to see everything what happened and I hope he is proud of this [Music] her husband's story has been told and if it is disputed well then the people it applies to they can actually Bowl up here and have their day in court to explain their story and that'd be a good day out [Music] [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Real History

Views: 1,464

Keywords: World History, US History, History Lessons, KGB, Russia, Putin, Alexander Litvinenko

Id: J4gWWkCFTeM

Length: 54min 27sec (3267 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 08 2023