LONDON (AP) – One day in 2006, a former KGB agent who claimed to know dark Kremlin secrets had tea with two Russian men at a London hotel. Three weeks later, he died of radioactive poisoning – after making a deathbed claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered his killing.
Moscow has always denied involvement, and almost a decade on, no one has been brought to justice.
On Thursday, British judge Robert Owen will release the long-awaited findings of a public inquiry into the killing of Litvinenko – and is likely to point a finger at elements in the Russian state.
___
WHO WAS ALEXANDER LITVINENKO?