On Tuesday, September 21, the European Court of Human Right has ruled that Russia was responsible for the2006 murder by radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London, closing the Carter v Russia(20914/07) case; its findings were consistent with those of a 2016 British inquiry.
Mr. Litvinenko is a former agent for the KGB spy agency and its post-Soviet successor agency FSB. In 2000 he defected from Russia and moved to London. There, he collaborated with UK’s MI6 in exposing corruption and links to organized crime in the Russian intelligence service. On November 1, 2006, Litvinenko, who in the meanwhile became a British citizen, fell violently ill after drinking tea with two Russian men at a central London hotel and he deceased on November 23: investigators found that his tea had been laced with polonium-210.
A UK public inquiry conducted 10 years later, in 2016, concluded that the killing was committed by Russian agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun and that it was "probably approved" by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both agents, and Russia as well, denied any involvement in the murder.
Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, took the case to the Strasbourg-based court, pledging to get justice for her husband. In its submission to the court, Russia argued that its domestic investigation had not established the involvement of any state authorities or special agents and that a search of Lugovoi’s office, car and home did not yield any incriminating evidence.
Britain and Russia are both members of the Council of Europe, an institution founded in 1949 to uphold human rights on the continent in the aftermath of World War II. One of its main responsibilities is to oversee the work of the European Court of Human Rights, which seeks to uphold the European Convention on Human Rights.
The ECHR ruled that “there was no evidence that either man had any personal reason to kill Mr. Litvinenko and it was not plausible that, if acting on their own behalf, they would have had access to the rare radioactive isotope used to poison him. The use of polonium-210 strongly indicates that Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun were acting with the support of a state entity which enabled them to procure the poison. A radioactive isotope was an unlikely murder weapon for common criminals and must have come from a reactor under state control. […]. The Court found in particular that there was a strong prima facie case that, in poisoning Mr. Litvinenko, Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun had been acting as agents of the respondent State. The act complained of is attributable to that State.”. It also established that the Russian government had “failed to provide any other satisfactory and convincing explanation of the events or counter the findings of the U.K. inquiry.” Particularly, the court said no serious attempt was made to disprove the findings of the UK authorities.
As aforementioned, both Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun have denied any involvement in the killing. It is relevant to report that a year afterwards Mr. Lugovoi became a member of Russia's lower house of Parliament; moreover, he criticized the UK public inquiry as a “spectacle” and an “open lie”.
However, the ECHR found it had established "beyond reasonable doubt" that the pair had carried out the poisoning, from the complex procurement of "rare, deadly poison", to the travel arrangements and the repeated and sustained attempts to poison Litvinenko.
Finally, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to pay Marina Litvinenko 100,000 euros in damages and 22,500 euros in costs; contrariwise, it rejected her claim for punitive damages, i.e., legal recompense that a defendant found guilty of committing a wrong or offense is ordered to pay on top of compensatory damages.
Mrs. Litvinenko welcomed the court’s ruling that highlighted the “undemocratic regime” in Moscow. She stated her priority was getting justice for her husband and holding Putin personally responsible; she hoped that this ruling would “make a turning point in the appeasement of Putin”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the ECHR ruling as “groundless” and said that Moscow would not pay the penalty imposed by the court.
He said the Strasbourg court “does not have the authority or the technical capabilities” to rule on the case and claimed that the court’s investigation “had not yielded any results, so making these kinds of assertions is groundless at the least”.
REFERENCES
European Court of Human Rights, ruling of September 21, 2021, Carter v. Russia (application no. 20914/07). http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press?i=003-7125276-9653243
Gardner, F. (2021, September 21). Russia behind Litvinenko murder, rules European rights court, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58637572
Roth, A. and Siddique H. (2021, September 21). Russia responsible for Alexander Litvinenko death, European court rules, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/21/russia-responsible-for-alexander-litvinenko-death-european-court-rules
Pylas, P. (2021, September 21). European court: Russia responsible for Litvinenko killing, from https://apnews.com/article/europe-russia-london-vladimir-putin-alexander-litvinenko-ebaff54dd7afb5972fe1e85ce81dc1b0
Redazione Ansa, (2021, September 21). Corte Strasburgo: 'Russia responsabile dell'assassinio di Litvinenko', from https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/mondo/2021/09/21/corte-strasburgo-russia-responsabile-dellassassinio-di-litvinenko_3334679e-4401-421d-87fc-a4cdc101857b.html
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