Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably approved” the killing of former KGB agent Alexander litvinenko who died in a hospital here in 2006 from radioactive poisoning, a British inquiry concluded on Thursday in a damning report, triggering a diplomatic row with Moscow.
litvinenko, a former agent in the Russian federal security service (FSB) or secret police, died days after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 which he is believed to have drunk in a cup of tea.
The finding by Robert Owen, a retired High Court judge, in a 328-page report represented by far the most damning official link between litvinenko’s death and the highest levels of the Kremlin.
While he lay dying in a london hospital bed, litvinenko had pointedly told Scotland Yard that the Russian President had given the orders for his killing.
There is a “strong probability” they were acting on behalf of the Russian FSB secret service, the inquiry found.