The main suspect in the poisoning of agent Litvinenko died of Covid-19

Andrei Lugovoi, a member of the State Duma (Russian lower house), announced on June 4 that Dmitry Kovtun had suddenly died due to a severe Covid-19 infection. TASS news agency quoted Kovtun’s relatives as saying he died at a hospital in Moscow.

Mr. Dmitry Kovtun in the photo taken in 2006 Reuters

Mr. Kovtun and Mr. Lugovoi are two Russians accused by Britain of poisoning Mr. Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Mr. Litvinenko used to be a spy for the KGB intelligence agency but later became a dissident and sought asylum in Germany. He then became a citizen of this country.

I think he Litvinenko died after drinking tea laced with the radioactive isotope Polonium 210 at the Millennium Hotel in London, where he met Mr. Kovtun and Mr. Lugovoi.

According to Reuters, British investigators found traces of Polonium in areas across London where the two Russian suspects appeared, including at the office, hotel, plane and Highbury Stadium, at the time. the club’s home ground football Arsenal.

The two Russian suspects denied involvement in the poisoning and the Russian side refused to extradite them to the UK for trial.

In 2016, a British judge concluded that the assassination was an agency operation Intelligence The FSB, created from the KGB, and possibly approved by then director Nikolai Patrushev. Mr. Patrushev is currently Secretary of the Security Council of Russia.

In September 2021, European Court of Human Rights (based in Strasbourg, France) considered that the British investigation met the standards of fairness, transparency and independence, which concluded that Mr Kovtun and Mr Lugovoi carried out the assassination at the direction of Mr. Russian officials. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later called the court’s conclusion unfounded.