Cloak & daggerLitvinenko murder “ordered from the top”: Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown, the former British PM, has said that the murder of Alexander Litvinenki, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, was “ordered from the top.” Gordon made the claim in a new book, adding that the British government was aware of another assassination attempt planned by the Kremlin on British soil. Litvinenko was poisoned in November 2006 with a cup of radioactive tea in a Mayfair hotel.
Gordon Brown, the former British PM, has said that the murder of Alexander Litvinenki was “ordered from the top.”
Gordon made the claim in a new book, adding that the British government was aware of another assassination attempt planned by the Kremlin on British soil.
Recalling his time as prime minister, Brown says his “immediate problem” with Vladimir Putin arose from the Litvinenko case. “We were clear that the assassination had been ordered from the top … and what was clear was that further assassinations on British soil were possible,” he writes. “Indeed, we believed that one new assassination was being planned. This led to the diplomatic standoff that has characterized our relations with Russia ever since.”
The Economist reports that Litvinenko was poisoned in November 2006 with a cup of radioactive tea in a Mayfair hotel. Brown became prime minister in June 2007, and one of the first diplomatic crisis he face was the refusal by Russia to extradite one of Litvinenko’s killers, Andrei Lugovoi.
In protest, the British government expelled four Russian diplomats. Moscow retaliated by epelling British diplomats from the U.K embassy in Moscow.
Brown writes that he agreed with a public inquiry held last year by Sir Robert Owen which concluded that Putin and the chief of the FSB – the successor of the KGB – had “probably approved” Litvinenko’s murder with polonium.
The Litvinenko case was not the only Russian attempt to use London to settle political scores with critics of Putin. In July 2007, Scotland Yard arrested a Chechen sent to London to kill billionaire Boris Berezovsky, a fierce critic of Putin. Berezovsky was found dead in 2013 at his ex-wife’s Berkshire mansion after losing a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Roman Abramovich. Abramovich, a Russian billionaire and owner of Chelsea soccer club, is close to Putin.
A medical examiner ruled Berezovsky’s death to be a suicide.
Brown makes the comments in his new book Britain: Leading Not Leaving, in which he offers a strong argument for Britain staying in the EU.
