It is only in the past year, and in the run-up to David Cameron's visit to Moscow this autumn that British officials stopped raising the Litvinenko case at every opportunity. It was brought up by Cameron at his meetings, according to British reports, but not in the same alarmist and indignant tone as before.
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interview with Mary Dejevsky, Chief editorial writer and a columnist at The Independent, member of the Valdai Discussion Club.
Why do the British society and media still pay so much attention to the case, though 5 years have passed and no substantial evidence was presented to Russia?
I think there are two reasons. The first is that the whole episode was so terrible and so unusual, and there were the pictures of Litvinenko on his deathbed, and the combination remained in people's memory.
The second reason is that the British authorities seemed to have no interest in reducing its significance or impact on the public. On the contrary, they kept up the pressure for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi, and kept this dispute with Russia in the media focus. It is only in the past year, and in the run-up to David Cameron's visit to Moscow this autumn that British officials stopped raising the issue at every opportunity. It was brought up by Cameron at his meetings, according to British reports, but not in the same alarmist and indignant tone as before.
Was this murder connected to the political activity of Alexander Litvinenko and his patron?
It is very hard to judge. The popular perception is that it was orchestrated by the Russian security services, and ultimately by President Putin. I have never subscribed to that view, preferring to see it as initiated by a single group in the FSB, or nothing to do with the FSB at all, and more connected with dubious business activity on the part of some of the people Litvinenko might have been associating with in London and elsewhere.
Litvinenko did not seem to be engaged in open political activity in Britain until quite soon before his death, when he attended a public event commemorating Anna Politkovskaya. Then he stood up and accused Putin of ordering her killing.
What can Russia do to dwindle the discussion of the case in the British establishment?
That's quite a difficult question. Obviously, one way is to extradite Lugovoi! And I think there is also a suggestion that Britain might want at least one other person extradited now. Neither of which, I suppose, is going to happen. The passage of time will mean that the public memory of the killing will fade, and if the British authorities choose - as I think they are doing at the moment - to play down this particular quarrel with Russia, that will have an effect, too.
It is needed to mention, however, that there has never been a formal inquest into Litvinenko's death, which is something that is supposed to happen with such suspicious cases. There was a post mortem, which happens to establish the medical cause of death, whose findings have never been released, but not an inquest. The official reason was that a trial always takes precedence, and so long as the British government hoped to have Lugovoi extradited to stand trial, the inquest could be delayed.
The preliminaries have now been begun to hold an inquest. This suggests to me that the British authorities have now given up hope that Lugovoi will be extradited to stand trial. Two other things are interesting. A decision has to be made about whether the inquest will be presided over by the local coroner or by a judge, which would make it more important. The coroner, who presided at a preliminary hearing, said that the inquest should consider wider issues than just the cause of death - which is what the authorities specifically asked for. He also said he found it unbelievable that Litvinenko was not on the radar of the British security services.
Second, Parliament passed a law, which provided for court cases and inquests to be held in camera, which means without the public, in certain cases where members of the security services were called to testify. It was assumed that this law was designed for trials connected to Iraq and Afghanistan where there were torture allegations. But I believed at the time - and confirmed this with a legal specialist - that the same provision could also be used to hold the Litvinenko inquest in secret.
