Alexander Litvinenko: The Russian man suspected of assassinating a former spy died from COVID-19 | World News
One of the men accused of assassinating Alexander Litvinenko in London has died of COVID-19.
Dmitry Kovtun, along with Andrei Lugovoy, is believed to have carried out the 2006 murder on behalf of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
Kovtun died in a Moscow Russia’s TASS news agency reported on Saturday.
Lugovoy, now a prominent member of Russia’s parliament, said he mourned the death of a “close and loyal friend”, the agency reported.
Police officers outside the Millennium Mayfair hotel in London, one of the sites that former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko visited in his final days
Mr. Litvinenko, a British citizen, is a former KGB agent who continued to work for MI6 after fleeing to the UK.
He has also become an outspoken critic of the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He died a painful death after being poisoned in London after his tea was laced with Polonium 210, a very rare and very powerful radioactive isotope.
From his hospital bed, he accused President Putin of ordering his murder, but the Kremlin has always denied any role.
Read more: Russia responsible for London assassination, European Court of Human Rights rules
In 2016, a judge at the British investigation into the case concluded that the killings were the work of Russia’s FSB spy agency, presumably with the consent of the agency’s director at the time. there, Nikolai Patrushev, and by President Putin himself.
Their investigation also found that former KGB bodyguard Lugovoy and his Russian colleague Kovtun carried out the murders.
British investigators have found traces of polonium at locations across London where the two men had stayed, including in offices, hotels, planes and the Arsenal football stadium.
They deny carrying out the poisoning and Russia refuses to extradite them to trial.
The tension between Mr. Litvinenko and President Putin dates back to their only face-to-face meeting in 1998, when Putin was head of the FSB and Mr. Litvinenko was pushing for reform of the intelligence agency.
Read more: Alexander Litvinenko Murder – Timeline
Mr. Litvinenko’s death led to an international outcry and further strained relations between Moscow and the West.
Fingers are pointed at the Kremlin again for poisonings on British soil in 2018, when attempts to assassinate the former Russian spy were carried out. Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a novichok neurotoxins.
Three Russian men have been charged about the Salisbury poisonings but the British authorities have yet to bring them to trial.
