Read Online A Very Expensive Poison by Luke Harding - Free Book Online
Authors: Luke Harding
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Russian troops had recaptured Grozny. Like Litvinenko, Zakayev was a noxious figure for the Russian government, which accused him of terrorism. By the end of the decade most of Chechnya’s independent leaders had been wiped out; Zakayev was the last man standing.
As well as Zakayev, Litvinenko became friends with a curious Italian called Mario Scaramella. Scaramella was the secretary to an Italian parliamentary commission that investigated links between Italian politicians and the KGB. Set up in 2002, the Mitrokhin Commission was politically motivated – an attempt by Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right government to smear its enemies, in particular the former and future centre-left prime minister Romano Prodi.
Scaramella claimed that Prodi was a KGB operative. To support this controversial thesis he fed fake documents to Litvinenko in London. Litvinenko certified them as genuine. Whether he did this because he believed them or simply because he was paid to do so, we don’t know. Perhaps it was a combination of both factors. In fact, the Mitrokhin archive itself – based on notes made by a KGB defector – was more damning about other Italian officials at the Moscow embassy, who came out of the investigation far worse. (There was no evidence Prodi was ever KGB, but plenty showing Italian diplomats in Moscow falling into honeytraps and scrapes.)
This was a murky business indeed. Litvinenko was apparently trading in compromising material, for which there is always a ready market in Russia, known as kompromat .
Some of Litvinenko’s campaign work struck his friends as a little loopy. He blamed the 7/7 bombings – a series of coordinated bomb attacks in central London, carried out in 2005 by four British Islamist men – on the FSB. He also wrote in an article for the Chechenpress website that Putin was a paedophile. The incident that inspired it was certainly somewhat bizarre: the president, encountering a group of tourists in the Kremlin, pulled up the shirt of a small boy and kissed him on the tummy. Still, as Goldfarb observed: ‘Putin is probably not a paedophile.’ To Litvinenko’s critics the article was further proof of his sheer public wildness.
Asked later if Litvinenko was a bit of a conspiracy theorist, Goldfarb added: ‘Well, at the time I thought so, but with what has happened since, I have become a conspiracy theorist myself, so it’s very hard to judge.’
In July 2006, the Duma rushed through two new laws that seemed to have a direct bearing on Litvinenko. The new legislation allowed Russia’s spy agencies to eliminate ‘extremists’ anywhere abroad, including in the UK. The definition of ‘extremism’ was also expanded. It now included ‘libellous’ statements about Putin’s administration.
Bukovsky and Oleg Gordievsky – the former KGB colonel turned high-profile MI6 informant – understood perfectly what these changes meant: that state murder in western countries now had official cover. In a letter to The Times , they wrote: ‘Thus, the stage is set for any critic ofPutin’s regime here, especially those campaigning against Russian genocide in Chechnya, to have an appointment with a poison-tipped umbrella. According to a statement by the Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov, the blacklist of potential targets is already compiled.’
Russia was about to host the G8 summit in St Petersburg. Western leaders should be prepared ‘to share responsibility for these murders’ or not go, Bukovsky and Gordievsky wrote. Needless to say, there was no boycott.
Litvinenko’s activities in exile were multifarious: campaigner, journalist, security consultant, investigator. In London he gave interviews and attended public meetings. The common thread that linked these personas was Litvinenko’s hatred of Putin, the man who had put him in jail, and of the FSB. He was the Russian president’s most persistent and ebullient critic.
One important activity, however, remained hidden.
*
The bank
As well as Zakayev, Litvinenko became friends with a curious Italian called Mario Scaramella. Scaramella was the secretary to an Italian parliamentary commission that investigated links between Italian politicians and the KGB. Set up in 2002, the Mitrokhin Commission was politically motivated – an attempt by Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right government to smear its enemies, in particular the former and future centre-left prime minister Romano Prodi.
Scaramella claimed that Prodi was a KGB operative. To support this controversial thesis he fed fake documents to Litvinenko in London. Litvinenko certified them as genuine. Whether he did this because he believed them or simply because he was paid to do so, we don’t know. Perhaps it was a combination of both factors. In fact, the Mitrokhin archive itself – based on notes made by a KGB defector – was more damning about other Italian officials at the Moscow embassy, who came out of the investigation far worse. (There was no evidence Prodi was ever KGB, but plenty showing Italian diplomats in Moscow falling into honeytraps and scrapes.)
This was a murky business indeed. Litvinenko was apparently trading in compromising material, for which there is always a ready market in Russia, known as kompromat .
Some of Litvinenko’s campaign work struck his friends as a little loopy. He blamed the 7/7 bombings – a series of coordinated bomb attacks in central London, carried out in 2005 by four British Islamist men – on the FSB. He also wrote in an article for the Chechenpress website that Putin was a paedophile. The incident that inspired it was certainly somewhat bizarre: the president, encountering a group of tourists in the Kremlin, pulled up the shirt of a small boy and kissed him on the tummy. Still, as Goldfarb observed: ‘Putin is probably not a paedophile.’ To Litvinenko’s critics the article was further proof of his sheer public wildness.
Asked later if Litvinenko was a bit of a conspiracy theorist, Goldfarb added: ‘Well, at the time I thought so, but with what has happened since, I have become a conspiracy theorist myself, so it’s very hard to judge.’
In July 2006, the Duma rushed through two new laws that seemed to have a direct bearing on Litvinenko. The new legislation allowed Russia’s spy agencies to eliminate ‘extremists’ anywhere abroad, including in the UK. The definition of ‘extremism’ was also expanded. It now included ‘libellous’ statements about Putin’s administration.
Bukovsky and Oleg Gordievsky – the former KGB colonel turned high-profile MI6 informant – understood perfectly what these changes meant: that state murder in western countries now had official cover. In a letter to The Times , they wrote: ‘Thus, the stage is set for any critic ofPutin’s regime here, especially those campaigning against Russian genocide in Chechnya, to have an appointment with a poison-tipped umbrella. According to a statement by the Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov, the blacklist of potential targets is already compiled.’
Russia was about to host the G8 summit in St Petersburg. Western leaders should be prepared ‘to share responsibility for these murders’ or not go, Bukovsky and Gordievsky wrote. Needless to say, there was no boycott.
Litvinenko’s activities in exile were multifarious: campaigner, journalist, security consultant, investigator. In London he gave interviews and attended public meetings. The common thread that linked these personas was Litvinenko’s hatred of Putin, the man who had put him in jail, and of the FSB. He was the Russian president’s most persistent and ebullient critic.
One important activity, however, remained hidden.
*
The bank
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