Litvinenko murder 'was like a mini nuclear attack on UK': Radioactive toxin 'found in a number of locations'

• Public inquiry into the death of Litvinenko, 43, opened yesterday in London
• He died of radiation poisoning in 2006 after drinking contaminated tea
• Panel heard that he was poisoned twice in the weeks before his death
• QC told inquiry thousands of Londoners could have been exposed to deadly polonium which was found at locations including Emirates stadium' 
• Thousands of people in Britain were put in grave danger when assassins used a radioactive chemical to launch a ‘miniature nuclear attack’ on Alexander Litvinenko, a court heard yesterday.
  Respected judge Sir Robert Owen said the highly deadly toxin fed to the former KGB spy could have been used to ‘kill large numbers of people or spread general panic and hysteria among the public’.
  On the opening day of the inquiry into his death, the Royal Courts of Justice heard radioactive traces were found in ‘large numbers of places’ after two Russian hitmen laced Mr Litvinenko’s tea with a lethal dose polonium-210 at a London hotel. 
  

  Killed: Alexander Litvinenko, pictured in hospital in November 2006, died from radiation poisoning
  

  Family: Marina Litvinenko pictured outside the hearing with her son Anatoly on the inquiry's first day
  

  History: Alexander Litvinenko pictured with his wife Marina (left) and son Anatoly in London in 2000
  Biochemical experts found a teapot at the Pine Bar in the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair with readings for polonium-210 which were off the charts.
  A public health alert was quickly issued after traces of the toxin – worth ‘tens of millions of dollars’ – were found in offices, homes, hotels and on planes across the capital and beyond.

A lethal dose of the highly radioactive chemical is 50 nanograms – one billionth of a gram – which means just one gram would be potentially enough to kill 100 million people. Robin Tam QC, counsel to the public inquiry, said: ‘Many thousands of members of the public, including British residents and visitors from overseas, might have been at risk from radioactivity.’

Sir Robert described the killing as ‘a miniature nuclear attack on the streets of London’.

After his death, Mr Litvinenko’s body had to be placed in a lead-lined coffin to prevent radiation from seeping out of his grave in Highgate cemetery in north London. 

Accusation: Ben Emmerson QC, for Marina Litvinenko, called Vladimir Putin's Russia a 'mafia state'

EVIDENCE TO BE HEARD IN SECRET TO PROTECT MI5 

Part of the evidence at the inquiry into Alexander Litvinenko’s assassination will be heard in secret.

Some witnesses will give evidence from behind a screen while others will be given complete secrecy to protect their links to the security services. And part of Judge Sir Robert Owen’s final report at the end of the multimillion-pound public inquiry ‘will have to remain secret’ to protect the sensitive evidence.

Even Mr Litvinenko’s wife Marina will not be allowed to see the secret parts of the judge’s report.

On the first day of the hearing yesterday, the court heard that the spy was being paid by the British security services in return for information on the Russian mafia.

But the Home Office has always said it can ‘neither confirm nor deny’ that Mr Litvinenko was employed by MI5, MI6 or GCHQ. Neil Garnham QC, representing the Home Office, told the court that this policy would continue. He said: ‘There will be allegations that individuals were agents for those organisations or worked for them. The work of those agencies requires secrecy and there is a need to preserve that.’

However Sir Robert said that if evidence emerged which suggested British agents could have prevented his death, he would consider allowing it to be heard during the inquiry.

The fatal attack in November 2006 was the second time that assassins had tried to kill him in the UK using polonium-210, Mr Tam also revealed.

Weeks earlier, the spy recalled feeling unwell around the time of a meeting at a security company in mid-October and told of ‘vomiting on one occasion about two or three weeks before being hospitalised’. ‘Hair samples indicate Mr Litvinenko may well have been poisoned twice and the first occasion being much less severe than the second,’ Mr Tam said.

The court heard how the 43-year-old was poisoned by former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun for his public opposition to Vladimir Putin. After drinking the poisoned tea at the hotel, he went home on a bus in London and soon started to feel unwell.

He spent 23 days in hospital in agonising pain as his strength left him and his organs began to fail. His final few days were spent in isolation in University College Hospital. It was then the haunting photo of him wearing a green hospital gown, his hair having fallen out through radiation poisoning, was taken. 

Meeting: Mr Litvinenko was apparently poisoned at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, pictured

Couple: The spy, left, fled to Britain with his wife Marina, right, after becoming an opponent of Vladimir Putin

Ben Emmerson QC, representing the Litvinenko family, said: ‘The murder was an act of unspeakable barbarism that inflicted on Alexander Litvinenko the most painful and lingering death imaginable.

Chairman: Sir Robert's inquiry comes more than eight years after Litvinenko's death

‘Mr Litvinenko came to realise he was bound to die, and that he had been the victim of a political assassination by the Russian state.’

Mr Emmerson also revealed that Mr Litvinenko’s photo had been used for target practice by Russian Special Forces during firearms training.

Medical experts only established the precise nature of the rare poison that was killing him two days before his death. They initially thought he had been given a dose of thallium.

However, he was given such a huge dose of polonium-210 experts believe he could not have been saved even with a prompt diagnosis. 

While alpha radiation emitted by polonium cannot pass through skin, when ingested it will fatally damage internal organs – known as acute radiation syndrome.

Polonium is an exceptionally rare element, with only around 100g produced every year. Mr Emmerson told the court the quantity given to Mr Litvinenko was worth ‘tens of millions of dollars’. He added: ‘It is, we say, unlikely in the extreme any private individual or purely criminal enterprise would choose such a costly method of assassination.

‘For the Russian state, however, which produces polonium-210 itself, the costs of the assassination would not be prohibitive.’ Lugovoi and Kovtun brought the chemical to the UK on flights from Russia to London in October, he said. The multi-million inquiry into Mr Litvinenko’s death will hear from some 70 witnesses and is expected to last ten weeks.

Sir Robert, its chairman, said sensitive evidence had established there is a ‘prima facie case’ as to the culpability of the Russian state’s involvement. The hearing continues.

Suspects: Dmitry Kovtun, left, and Andrei Lugovoi, right, have been accused of killing Litvinenko

Speaking out: Mr Litvinenko, right, at a 1998 press conference in which he and secret service colleagues publicly denounced their boss Vladimir Putin

RUTHLESS PUTIN 'WAS BEHIND THIS REVENGE KILLING' 

Vladimir Putin was accused of being a ‘common criminal dressed up as a head of state’ by the barrister representing Alexander Litvinenko’s family.

Ben Emmerson QC said the dissident became a ‘marked man’ after he attempted to expose a plot by the Russian intelligence service – the FSB – to kill billionaire Boris Berezovsky in 1998.

He further ‘antagonised’ his former FSB boss Putin by writing two books, and was killed on his direct orders, Mr Emmerson claimed.

The first of Mr Litvinenko’s publications alleged the agency bombed apartment blocks which were then blamed on Chechen rebels to trigger a conflict, while a second implicated the FSB in Russian mafia operations.

The dissident became a 'marked man' after antangonising his former boss Putin (pictured), Mr Litvinenko's lawyer claimed

Mr Litvinenko’s claims did ‘considerable damage’ to the FSB’s reputation – after the initial book ‘Blowing Up Russia’ was published.

The dissident also criticised Putin’s regime on TV and elsewhere in public, including blaming the state for the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. And at the time of his death, Mr Litvinenko – who had defected and was working for MI6 – was due to give evidence in a Spanish trial which could have exposed links between Putin and organised crime, Mr Emmerson said.

A day after Mr Litvinenko died in 2006, one politician told a debate in the Russian Duma: ‘The traitor received the punishment he deserved.’ Mr Emmerson said: ‘He had broken the culture of silence about the inner workings of the FSB. Experts on the Russian state have suggested that he was a marked man from that moment onwards.’

Mr Emmerson, representing Mr Litvinenko’s wife Marina and son Anatoly, said a plan was hatched at the highest level to ‘punish him lethally for breaking ranks’. ‘It was really only a question of how long it would take and what means would eventually be devised to deliver the fatal blow,’ Mr Emmerson said, adding: ‘Russian security services could not have carried out the assassination without Mr Putin’s direct approval, given Mr Putin’s known attention to detail in such matters.

‘We say that when all the open and closed evidence is considered together Mr Litvinenko’s dying declaration will be borne out as true – the trail of polonium leads not only from London to Moscow but directly to the door of Mr Putin’s office – and that Vladimir Putin should be unmasked by this inquiry as nothing more or less than a common criminal dressed up as a head of state.’

The inquiry was read transcripts of interviews given by Mr Litvinenko to police on his deathbed, in which he attacked members of the G8 group of industrialised nations, including Tony Blair, for legitimising the Putin regime.

He also blamed Putin for the polonium attack, telling police: ‘The order could only have been given by one person – the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.’

Mr Emmerson said: ‘Putin was a ruthless and deadly enemy.’