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The Shadow Dossier — The Poison in the Teapot · The Shadow Dossier

• 0:00
  The Shadow Dossier. Act I. A quiet meeting in
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  a London hotel. On November 1st, 2006, Alexander
• 0:13
  Litvinenko, a former officer of Russia's FSB
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  security service, turned outspoken Kremlin critic
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  living in exile in London, met two former Russian
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  intelligence contacts. Andre Le Govoy and Dimitri
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  Kovtun for tea at the Millennium Hotel in central
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  London. Within hours, he fell seriously ill.
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  Three weeks later, he was dead. The victim of
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  what British investigators would eventually determine
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  was deliberate poisoning using a radioactive
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  isotope, polonium -210, placed in his tea. A
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  death that took weeks to explain. Litvinenko's
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  illness initially baffled the doctors treating
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  him at London hospitals. His symptoms, severe
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  gastrointestinal distress followed by progressive
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  organ failure and hair loss, resembled several
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  different possible causes. And it took specialists
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  considerable time working against a rapidly deteriorating
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  patient to identify polonium. 210 as the actual
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  cause, an identification made partly because
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  of Litvinenko's own persistent suspicion, communicated
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  to doctors and investigators, even as he grew
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  increasingly ill, that he had been deliberately
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  poisoned by Russian state. Actors. Polonium 210
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  proved a genuinely unusual poison. Chosen. Investigators
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  concluded specifically because it was almost
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  undetectable by standard toxicology screening
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  and because its radioactive properties meant
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  it would cause fatal internal damage gradually,
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  over weeks, rather than through the kind of immediate
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  dramatic collapse that might have triggered faster
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  medical intervention or investigation. The substance's
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  radioactive signature ultimately became crucial
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  to solving the case, since polonium 210 leaves
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  a detectable trail wherever it travels, allowing
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  British investigators to trace radioactive contamination
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  through hotel rooms, restaurants, and airplane
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  seats connected to Le Govoy and Cofton's movements
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  through London in the days surrounding the poisoning.
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  Before his death on November 23rd, 2006, Litvinenko
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  dictated a statement, released publicly after
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  he died, directly accusing Russian President
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  Vladimir Putin of responsibility for his poisoning.
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  A remarkably direct public accusation from a
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  dying man that received enormous international
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  media attention and placed the case immediately
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  into a category well beyond ordinary criminal
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  investigation. into the realm of suspected state
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  -sponsored assassination carried out on British
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  soil against A. British citizen Litvinenko having
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  been granted citizenship the year before his
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  death. Litvinenko's own background made the case's
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  political dimensions especially pointed. He had
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  worked for Russian intelligence before publicly
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  breaking with the Kremlin in the late 1990s.
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  accusing his former agency of corruption and,
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  in some of his public statements, of orchestrating
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  apartment bombings within Russia itself that
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  had been used to justify the Second Chechen War,
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  allegations that made him a particularly prominent
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  and, from the Kremlin's perspective, particularly
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  threatening critic among the broader community
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  of Russian exiles in London. A public inquiry
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  that named names. British police formally identified
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  Andrei Ligovoi as their prime suspect within
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  months. And both Britain and Russia found themselves
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  in a prolonged diplomatic standoff over Ligovoi's
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  extradition. A standoff Russia resolved simply
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  by refusing, citing its constitutional prohibition
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  on extraditing its own citizens. A refusal that
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  has remained in place ever since and that effectively
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  ended any realistic prospect of a British criminal
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  trial actually taking place. A formal British
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  public inquiry led by a senior judge and given
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  access to both open and classified evidence.
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  published its findings in January 2016, concluding
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  that Litvinenko's poisoning had probably been
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  carried out with the knowledge and approval of
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  the FSB's director at the time, and probably
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  approved by President Putin himself, a formal.
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  Public judicial conclusion that went considerably
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  further than most governments are typically willing
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  to state openly about another nation's head of.
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  State. even in cases where private intelligence
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  assessments reach similar conclusions. Russia
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  has consistently and firmly denied any involvement
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  in Litvinenko's death, and both Ligovoy and Kovtun
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  have remained in Russia beyond any practical
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  reach of British prosecution. with lagovoi in
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  particular going on to a public political career
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  winning election to the russian parliament a
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  position that granted him formal legal immunity
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  within russia regardless of the british findings
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  against him what the litvinenko case ultimately
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  demonstrated beyond the specific circumstances
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  of one man's death was a method of political
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  assassination that functioned simultaneously
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  as a private act of elimination and a deliberately
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  public message. Choosing a substance so unusual,
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  so traceable, and so slow -acting that the resulting
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  international investigation, rather than obscuring
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  what had happened, instead made the method itself,
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  and by strong implication its likely sponsor,
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  unmistakably visible too. Anyone paying attention,
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  a form of deterrent aimed less at Litvinenko
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  himself than at anyone else considering following
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  the same path of public defection and criticism.
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  This concludes declassified file number 0041
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  of the shadow dossier, the poison in the teapot.
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  What dangerous secrets await in our next file?
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• 7:54
  This is the Shadow Dossier. Thank you for listening.