Who killed Alexander Litvinenko?

The mystery of the man who became known as “the Russian spy” continues to intrigue people all  over the world. There are daily fragments in the media, books to be published, and maybe even a hollywood movie.

And behind it all is one central question: does the trail of polonium in London lead all the way to the Kremlin in Moscow? Some think it must. How else would someone get their hands on polonium-210, a state controlled substance?

Paul Joyal: It’s clear-cut.  It has to be a state-run or a state-managed operation.

Before he died, Alexander Litvinenko gave his own answers.

Dan McGrory, Times reporter: He had absolutely no doubt that he had been murdered on the orders of the Kremlin, and that this entire plot had begun in Moscow, and that it was settling scores for him leaving the intelligence service and betraying President Putin.

British prosecutors are now reportedly examining evidence that the Russian government conspired to use a regulated radioactive substance to murder Alexander Litvinenko.

But while that might seem unbelievable, Litvinenko’s friend Paul Joyal argues—and many Russia observers agree—a disturbing number of Kremlin opponents have been killed in recent years—crimes never solved.

Not only the investigative journalist, the friend of Litvinenko, but Russian congressmen and a congresswoman, and others who investigated government business.

Joyal: You have a whole series of cases where journalists have been murdered. People being told to muzzle their criticism of the government.  This is a pattern.  It’s a pattern.

Marina Litvinenko believes her husband is dead because he spoke out.

Marina Litvinenko: They said, what he did, it’s not forgiven.

Ann Curry, Dateline correspondent: They said—

Marina Litvinenko: Yes exactly.

Curry: --it’s not forgiven what you have said about the Kremlin, about Vladimir Putin—

Litvinenko: Yes and about his open conference in 1998.

Curry: His news conference in which he outed the FSB.

Marina Litvinenko: Absolutely—

Curry: If that’s true then, if the government of the Kremlin had anything to do with Sasha’s death, does that mean that the order comes from the top?

Marina Litvinenko: It could be, yes.

Curry: Likely?

Marina Litvinenko: Yes.

Curry: Almost immediately upon hearing that he had been poisoned, you began to suspect that this went all the way to the Kremlin. 

Joyal: Absolutely.

Curry: What are the chances this goes all the way to the top?

Joyal: Did Putin order it? We can’t say that.  But I would find it hard to believe that this information, whatever it may be, has not filtered its way up to the top.

Curry: Why would the Kremlin be involved in something that has so many fingerprints that point to the Kremlin? Why not just a simple bullet in the back of the head?

Joyal: Death could have been unknown, natural causes, with no fingerprints attached.

Joyal believes whoever planned the murder deliberately used a radioactive poison produced mainly in Russia to send a strong message.

Joyal: The benefit from their standpoint is, “We are letting everyone know that we will inflict a horrible death, a public, horrible death on those that speak out against us.”

The Russian government strongly denies any involvement in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Putin: Russia gets blamed for every sin in this world.

A spokesman for President Putin describes allegations against the Kremlin as absurd.

Peskov: No.  No.  No, it is unthinkable.  This is unimaginable that someone in Russia, official Russia in Kremlin or President Putin himself can be somehow linked to any murder of any man.

Dmitry Peskov insists no polonium-210 has gone missing from Russian stockpiles.

Peskov:It is completely impossible to guarantee—for example, that this polonium was not from the United States or that this polonium is not from France or is not from Ireland or is not from Russia. This is why we’re having this investigation.

He told "Dateline" the killing was most likely carried out by enemies of the state who want to ruin Russia’s name.

And at a recent news conference, Russia’s president himself gave another side of Alexander Litvinenko’s story not usually told in Western media.

He recalled that 1998 press conference in which Litvinenko took on the FSB, after which he was jailed.

Putin (from press conference): Alexander Litvinenko was dismissed from the Russian security services. He was involved in criminal proceedings for abusing his position, beating citizens during arrests and for stealing explosives.

Putin played down Litvinenko as a small fish who had no access to state secrets and posed no threat to Russia. He added only a court could decide who was guilty of his murder.

The Russian government has launched its own investigation into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a process that could take a long time and could keep key witnesses away from British prosecutors.

The Kremlin insists it wants to get to the bottom of this gruesome killing and a few days ago Russian prosecutors arrived in London to interview witnesses. Friends of Litvinenko say that is just a ploy to buy time and preserve a political murder as a mystery.

Joyal: As long as there is a possible deniability, it’ll go away in time.  Maybe not this week.  Maybe not next week.  But if you just hang in there and deny, it will be forgotten.  And there’s nothing anyone can do.

For now, Marina Litvinenko is doing what she can. She has written to President Putin challenging him to help bring her husband’s killers to justice. But she is still struggling to make sense of losing the man she so loved.

Marina Litvinenko: I just feel he’s here I was a very happy woman with him. I told him, “Sasha, we have plenty  time together to spend in our life.” I couldn’t imagine that it will finish so soon.

There was some collateral damage in the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. British health officials say about 130 people probably had direct contact with polonium-210 and that 16 of them got a dose large enough to slightly increase their risk of developing cancer.

We deeply regret that Dan McGrory sadly passed away in February. And in another (much more) mysterious incident, four days after our story first aired, another interviewee, Paul Joyal, was shot just outside his home in Maryland. The crime remains unsolved.

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