Lawyer: Putin ordered the murder of Litvinenko

Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered Alexander Litvinenko’s polonium poisoning in 2006, said Ben Emmerson, the lawyer of the late Marina Litvinenko’s wife.

According to Reuters, on the last day of a public hearing on the Litvinenko case, the lawyer cited several motives indicating the responsibility of the Russian state for the death of the former KGB agent in London.

In particular, Emmerson said that Litvinenko prepared reports for Western companies in which he exposed Putin’s connections with his entourage with the criminal environment. Therefore, business agreements were canceled. Litvinenko gave some of these reports to Andrei Lugovoi, whom he trusted.

Recall that the ex-agent died in November 2006 of the year, three weeks after he was treated to polonium tea by former Russian intelligence officers Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun.

Lawyer Richard Horwell, representing London police, said Russia was "in one way or another" involved in Litvinenko's death.

The judge in the Litvinenko case, Robert Owen, said that he would draw up a report for the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom, which is scheduled to be made public at the end of 2015.

The Russian authorities reject all accusations of the investigation. As Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow, Russia considers unworthy of the credibility of the hearing on the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in a London court.