Dmitry Kovtoun, here in April 2015, in Moscow. DMITRY SEREBRYAKOV / AFP
Dmitry Kovtoun, who is accused by London of fatally poisoning former spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, died in Russia of complications from Covid-19, said on Saturday June 4 a member of the Duma who also did suspected in this assassination. “Sad news, my close and loyal friend Dmitry Kovtun died suddenly from a serious illness related to coronavirus infection,” said Andrei Lugovoi, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament. “It is a terrible and irreparable loss,” he continued in a message on his Telegram account.
Russian news agency TASS, citing an anonymous relative of the deceased, confirmed that Mr Kovtoun died in a Moscow hospital. In September 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found Russia “responsible” for the killing of Mr Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium-210 in the UK in 2006; a decision denounced by Moscow. The ECtHR found that there was “a strong presumption” that the authors of the poisoning named by the British inquiry, MM Kovtun and Lugovoi, “acted as agents of the Russian state”.
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Banished to Britain
Mr. Litvinenko, a former agent of the State Security Committee (KGB), then the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation, had been fired from the Russian security services after sulphurous, often unverifiable, revelations. After being granted asylum in the UK in 2001, he continued to denounce corruption and alleged links between the Russian secret service and organized crime.
He died on November 23, 2006, a few days after having tea with MM. Kovtun and Lugovoi in a London hotel where significant traces of polonium-210, an extremely toxic radioactive substance, had been found at the time.
His assassination sparked a serious crisis between the UK and Russia, which has always denied any involvement.
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