British Police See FSB as Prime Suspect in Litvinenko Poisoning

Intelligence services in Britain are convinced that the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko was authorized by the Russian Federal Security Service, The Times newspaper reports.

Security sources have told The Times that the FSB orchestrated a “highly sophisticated plot” and was likely to have used some of its former agents to carry out the operation on the streets of London.

“We know how the FSB operates abroad and, based on the circumstances behind the death of Mr Litvinenko, the FSB has to be the prime suspect,” a source said on Monday.

The involvement of a former FSB officer made it easier to lure Mr Litvinenko to meetings at various locations and to distance its bosses in the Kremlin from being directly implicated in the plot.

Intelligence officials say that only officials such as FSB agents would have been able to obtain sufficent amounts of polonium-210, the radioactive substance used to fatally poison Litvinenko only weeks after he was given British citizenship.

MI5 and MI6 are working closely with Scotland Yard on the investigation. A senior police source told The Times yesterday that the method used to kill the 43-year-old dissident was intended to send a message to his friends and allies.

“It’s such a bad way to die, they must have known,” the source said. “The sheer organisation involved could only have been managed by professionals adept at operating internationally.”

Nine Scotland Yard detectives are in Moscow, and they are determined to question a number of well-connected businessmen, despite a warning yesterday from Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, that speculation over the poisoning is straining relations between the two governments.

“It’s unacceptable that a campaign should be whipped up with the participation of officials. This is of course harming our relations,” Mr Lavrov said during a visit to Brussels.

He said that he had spoken to Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, “about the necessity to avoid any kind of politicisation of this matter, this tragedy”.

British ministers insist that diplomatic sensitivities will not be allowed to obstruct the scope of the Yard investigation.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, who was also in Brussels briefing his European counterparts on the Litvinenko affair, said: “The police will follow the evidence wherever it goes.”

The main figure that the British counter-terror team want to question is Andrei Lugovoy, a former FSB agent. He made three visits to London in the fortnight before Mr Litvinenko fell ill and met him four times at various restaurants and bars.

Lugovoy, who is a successful entrepreneur, was briefly imprisoned in Moscow after he left the FSB. After his release his business career thrived and his company is reported to be worth more than GBP100 million.

Two hotels in London in which he stayed had traces of polonium-210, as did a British Airways aircraft that Mr Lugovoy travelled on. He was among three Russians who last met Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel on November 1, the day that he fell ill.

Last night Lugovoy told The Times that he and two business associates, Dmitri Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, were ready to meet detectives.

The men have all denied involvement in any poison plot.

The judgment by British Intelligence has been strengthened by the knowledge that the FSB has legislative approval for eliminating terrorists and enemies of the state abroad, after the passing of a controversial anti-terrorism law in the summer.

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