:00:00. > :00:00.death almost went undiscovered, so who killed him and why? We
:00:00. > :00:00.investigate the polonium trail and reveal how it led to President
:00:00. > :00:10.Putin's front door. Alexander Litvinenko,
:00:11. > :00:12.caught on CCTV, on his way to a meeting with two former Russian
:00:13. > :00:15.spies at the up-market This was a killing with
:00:16. > :00:31.a very clear purpose. And it was a killing
:00:32. > :00:38.with some state involvement. It was perhaps the most audacious
:00:39. > :00:41.murder on British soil ever, There had never been another
:00:42. > :00:48.investigation into the murder of a British subject in London
:00:49. > :00:53.by means of radioactivity. This is the inside story
:00:54. > :00:56.of what was supposed to be Death by radioactive
:00:57. > :01:03.poison on British streets. One day people will know
:01:04. > :01:19.the truth about him. Alexander Litvinenko
:01:20. > :01:21.was the Russian spy who turned A man steeped in the shady,
:01:22. > :01:27.sometimes disreputable He used to work for the KGB
:01:28. > :01:34.at a higher level, but was granted Six years later, just after he had
:01:35. > :01:48.become a British citizen, he met two former colleagues
:01:49. > :01:51.from Russia's intelligence world in the Pine Bar at
:01:52. > :01:55.the Millennium Hotel. He left the meeting
:01:56. > :01:59.seemingly perfectly healthy. Two days later he was admitted
:02:00. > :02:02.to his local hospital vomiting A colleague came into my office
:02:03. > :02:08.and explained that in hospital in north London was a man
:02:09. > :02:11.who was telling quite He was saying that he was a former
:02:12. > :02:17.member of the Russian Intelligence Agency, and that he believed he had
:02:18. > :02:20.been poisoned by some The former KGB man was transferred
:02:21. > :02:30.to University College London in central London for intensive care
:02:31. > :02:38.with a police escort. The Metropolitan Police,
:02:39. > :02:41.they said it was important for him So this was now an investigation
:02:42. > :02:49.into an attempted murder. Alexander Litvinenko's white blood
:02:50. > :03:02.cell count was catastrophically low. He was brought to us with symptoms
:03:03. > :03:16.and signs of bone marrow failure. He started to lose his hair,
:03:17. > :03:21.it was exactly what I was saying, why, why can nobody
:03:22. > :03:24.explain what has happened to him? Specialist consultants were baffled
:03:25. > :03:26.but his life was ebbing away. His vital organs were being
:03:27. > :03:29.destroyed in a sequential pattern. And that was followed very rapidly
:03:30. > :03:37.by his kidneys and then his heart. We could see that we were losing
:03:38. > :03:40.the battle right in front We were in the unusual position
:03:41. > :03:47.of having what you could describe as a living murder victim telling us
:03:48. > :03:51.about how it was that he came to believe that he was
:03:52. > :03:57.meeting his death. So there were police by his bedside,
:03:58. > :04:01.but also government scientists So, the scene really
:04:02. > :04:11.was a mixture of individuals. The police officers were there,
:04:12. > :04:24.but there were some people who probably weren't police
:04:25. > :04:26.officers, but were possibly members Medically, doctors still did not
:04:27. > :04:42.know what had made him so ill. A couple of days after he was
:04:43. > :04:46.admitted we had a brainstorming session with various medical
:04:47. > :04:49.colleagues, pharmacists, toxicologists, and colleagues
:04:50. > :04:52.from Public Health England. As a last resort, the highly unusual
:04:53. > :05:12.decision was made to send blood and urine samples here
:05:13. > :05:17.to the government's top-secret nuclear research centre
:05:18. > :05:19.at Aldermaston where Britain's nuclear bomb
:05:20. > :05:21.had been developed. A confidential source with close
:05:22. > :05:24.knowledge of these events told me a fascinating story about how
:05:25. > :05:26.the poison was finally discovered. At Aldermaston they first use
:05:27. > :05:33.a technique called spectroscopy Professor Ian Shipsey,
:05:34. > :05:40.one of the world's leading We take the blood and
:05:41. > :05:53.place it into a vessel. We attach the vessel to a vacuum
:05:54. > :05:56.pump to remove all of the air. In that vessel is a sensitive camera
:05:57. > :05:59.that can detect radiation And the output of the camera
:06:00. > :06:09.produces the trace that you see. The location of the peak identifies
:06:10. > :06:22.the radioactive isotope present. The team at Aldermaston was looking
:06:23. > :06:25.for gamma radiation. They noticed a small spike
:06:26. > :06:29.in the trace, but they didn't By chance a scientist who worked
:06:30. > :06:36.on a nuclear bomb programme overheard the scientists
:06:37. > :06:41.discussing the results. He immediately spotted this
:06:42. > :06:44.was the gamma ray spike of polonium 210, which used to be used
:06:45. > :06:49.to make nuclear weapons. And leads to instant organ failure
:06:50. > :07:02.throughout the body. Does it surprise you that he managed
:07:03. > :07:05.to recognise that gamma spike? For most people it would be hard
:07:06. > :07:08.to do, but with the right experience it is like recognising
:07:09. > :07:20.an old friend's face in a crowd. The realisation that
:07:21. > :07:22.Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned by polonium was described
:07:23. > :07:29.to me as a eureka moment. The implication for public health
:07:30. > :07:31.was severe, polonium 210 I understand that night
:07:32. > :07:37.the government's public-health body was warned about a possible
:07:38. > :07:39.radiological contamination incident The Health Protection Agency
:07:40. > :07:53.scrambled its emergency team. 20 scientists worked
:07:54. > :07:56.through the night. The following day, Aldermaston
:07:57. > :07:58.confirmed it was poisoning Alexander Litvinenko died
:07:59. > :08:08.in hospital the very same day. You know, it is very important
:08:09. > :08:21.for the relationship. Even if it was a lot
:08:22. > :08:25.of medical stuff around, I was very pleased I was allowed
:08:26. > :08:39.to see him for the last minute. If he had died a week earlier it
:08:40. > :08:43.simply would have been recorded I've been a consultant
:08:44. > :08:51.for over 20 years. It is possible that the cause
:08:52. > :09:04.of death would not have been found would have been put down
:09:05. > :09:07.as a mystery illness? Marina Litvinenko was told
:09:08. > :09:13.it was not safe to go home. They said, Marina, we don't even
:09:14. > :09:18.know how to tell it to you, because it has never been
:09:19. > :09:21.in our practice to manage It is a radioactive material
:09:22. > :09:31.that killed a person. They said, it may not be a safe
:09:32. > :09:41.place for you to stay in the house. And at the same time
:09:42. > :09:50.I had lost everything. The government's civil
:09:51. > :09:53.contingencies committee Cobra met in Downing Street four times
:09:54. > :09:57.in the week after his death. The Health and Safety Executive
:09:58. > :10:00.feared causing panic More than 600 people
:10:01. > :10:09.were traced and tested This was an unprecedented
:10:10. > :10:16.emergency for the government. The scale of concern
:10:17. > :10:23.is only now becoming clear. We were finding polonium in aircraft
:10:24. > :10:28.on which people had been involved And of course, the public
:10:29. > :10:37.were understandably very concerned, My sources told me that they even
:10:38. > :10:48.tested the London Underground. Stations and trains had
:10:49. > :10:52.found traces of polonium. This remained secret at the time
:10:53. > :10:58.to avoid public panic. At the peak of its investigation,
:10:59. > :11:01.the Met had more than 100 detectives Step away from the front
:11:02. > :11:06.of the premises, please, The obvious line of enquiry
:11:07. > :11:13.is you follow the trail and that is exactly what this
:11:14. > :11:15.investigation was, trials of polonium across
:11:16. > :11:18.London and beyond. Well over 40 sites of
:11:19. > :11:25.radioactive contamination. The two former Russian spies who met
:11:26. > :11:28.Alexander Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel before
:11:29. > :11:31.he fell ill were quickly identified Here, Andrei Lugovoi is caught
:11:32. > :11:39.on the Hotel security camera on his way to the toilet,
:11:40. > :11:43.hand in pocket. 15 minutes later Dmitry Kovtun does
:11:44. > :11:46.the same, spending three minutes The bathroom sinks, the hand dryer,
:11:47. > :11:54.and one toilet door were later found to have some of the heaviest
:11:55. > :11:58.contamination of all. To my knowledge there had never been
:11:59. > :12:01.another investigation into the murder of a British subject
:12:02. > :12:04.in London by means of radioactivity. Almost at every stage
:12:05. > :12:16.of this enquiry. But the polonium trail actually
:12:17. > :12:19.starts two weeks early on the 16th of October when Alexander Litvinenko
:12:20. > :12:27.first met both prime suspects. This is thought to be the day
:12:28. > :12:36.of a first murder attempt. The sushi bar, where they had
:12:37. > :12:38.lunch, was contaminated. They spent the night
:12:39. > :12:41.at the Best Western Hotel in Shaftesbury Avenue,
:12:42. > :12:42.very heavy contamination was found Lugovoi was back in London
:12:43. > :12:49.on the 25th of October, his room at the Sheraton Park Lane
:12:50. > :12:52.was heavily contaminated. Three days later he flew
:12:53. > :12:58.from Moscow to London. Polonium was found on his
:12:59. > :13:04.British Airways flight. And Kovtun flew from Moscow
:13:05. > :13:07.to Hamburg on the 1st of November. Again, polonium was found
:13:08. > :13:14.in the city by German police. Polonium trails suggests there
:13:15. > :13:22.were three separate murder attempts. In May 2007 the then Director
:13:23. > :13:26.of Public Prosecutions, Ken McDonald, recommended
:13:27. > :13:30.prosecution for murder. It was a grotesque murder conducted
:13:31. > :13:35.on the streets of London in the most public way leading to a lingering
:13:36. > :13:40.and very public death. This was not some random
:13:41. > :13:45.killing, this was a killing And it was a killing
:13:46. > :13:55.with some state involved. The public enquiry into
:13:56. > :14:02.Alexander Litvinenko's murder, that has been sitting in London
:14:03. > :14:05.for the past six months, heard strong scientific
:14:06. > :14:17.evidence that it was. Professor Norman Dalby
:14:18. > :14:21.is a physicist who gave evidence The secret city of Sarov is the only
:14:22. > :14:26.place where the polonium could have There is no other reasonable
:14:27. > :14:32.way of making it. That implies some degree
:14:33. > :14:34.of state control. its transportation,
:14:35. > :14:42.it is regulated by the state, and its use is regulated
:14:43. > :14:50.by the state. But why would Russia want him dead
:14:51. > :14:53.six years after he had fled Evidence heard in the public
:14:54. > :14:57.enquiry, and conversations with private sources make it
:14:58. > :15:03.clear, he developed some As far as the Russian
:15:04. > :15:09.state was concerned, Alexander Litvinenko
:15:10. > :15:16.was an agent who had gone rogue. At this press conference in Moscow
:15:17. > :15:19.he accused Russian security forces of corruption and of
:15:20. > :15:25.murdering their opponents. His face was even used for target
:15:26. > :15:37.practice by special forces. He spent almost a year in prison
:15:38. > :15:40.and on his release his friend, Yuri Felshtinsky, asked a former KGB
:15:41. > :15:46.general if he would be safe. He told me that Alexander Litvinenko
:15:47. > :15:53.committed treason, and this treason And there is no way
:15:54. > :15:58.Alexander Litvinenko There is no way that the crime
:15:59. > :16:04.Alexander Litvinenko committed And that if the ever saw him
:16:05. > :16:11.himself, personally, if he ever meet him again,
:16:12. > :16:17.he will kill him, he would kill him He fled with his family
:16:18. > :16:28.to the UK and set himself up Operating in the sometimes murky
:16:29. > :16:35.world of Mayfair companies wanting The public enquiry heard how
:16:36. > :16:43.he began helping Britain's secret He had a handler called Martin,
:16:44. > :16:51.and he used to meet him Alexander Litvinenko was also
:16:52. > :17:04.helping the Spanish tackle powerful figures from the Russian
:17:05. > :17:09.Mafia living in Spain. Prosecutor Jose Grinda has spent 20
:17:10. > :17:14.years investigating organised crime. In a rare broadcast
:17:15. > :17:19.interview he confirmed that Litvinenko was helping
:17:20. > :17:21.to investigate members of the Saint Petersburg
:17:22. > :17:26.Mafia, the Tambov gang. TRANSLATION: Why did we need
:17:27. > :17:28.Alexander Litvinenko? They had been targeted before
:17:29. > :17:47.by Alexander Litvinenko. We obtained documents in Spain that
:17:48. > :17:49.reveal how the Spanish were closing TRANSLATION: We have confirmed links
:17:50. > :17:57.between Russian criminals and members of the Russian
:17:58. > :18:00.administration and the Russian Prosecutions Office,
:18:01. > :18:05.and the Russian Army, and even members of
:18:06. > :18:18.the Russian government. But his work with Western
:18:19. > :18:21.intelligence didn't get him killed. I was told by a source
:18:22. > :18:24.with knowledge of inside thinking here at MI6 that Alexander
:18:25. > :18:27.Litvinenko was murdered on the orders of the Russian state
:18:28. > :18:30.because he had crossed two The smouldering remains
:18:31. > :18:41.of 64 apartments. Torn to shreds by
:18:42. > :18:46.a massive explosion. This was the first red line,
:18:47. > :18:48.the Moscow apartment Vladimir Putin blamed
:18:49. > :18:55.the Chechnyans, calling it Alexander Litvinenko co-wrote a book
:18:56. > :19:02.called Blowing Up Russia. Sensationally it accused the Russian
:19:03. > :19:05.secret service of bombing Moscow When the government was quick enough
:19:06. > :19:17.to accuse Chechnyans to start the second Chechnyan war,
:19:18. > :19:22.to start to bomb Grozny, Nobody was actually expecting
:19:23. > :19:35.to see it this way. But the reaction of the population
:19:36. > :19:38.was, we now have to have a strong Shortly before he was killed
:19:39. > :19:47.Alexander Litvinenko made some allegations on the Internet claiming
:19:48. > :19:53.that Putin was a paedophile. Largely based on these pictures
:19:54. > :19:57.of the president kissing a boy. These were wild allegations
:19:58. > :20:04.that Putin denied. I did accept him for what he did,
:20:05. > :20:17.with all of his personality. Russia continues to deny any
:20:18. > :20:32.involvement in the murder and is protecting
:20:33. > :20:37.the prime suspects. In 2007 Lugovoi was made
:20:38. > :20:40.a member of the parliament, giving him immunity
:20:41. > :20:45.from prosecution. He lives a very public life
:20:46. > :20:48.and he appears to be admired by some I have to say that isn't
:20:49. > :20:56.an admiration we shared. And just this year, President Putin
:20:57. > :20:58.awarded him with a medal Lugovoi now has his own TV show,
:20:59. > :21:14.wait for it, called "Traitors". He may feel hounded,
:21:15. > :21:21.but Marina Litvinenko wants justice. You kill my husband you have to be
:21:22. > :21:29.responsible for this. So what about the other prime
:21:30. > :21:32.suspect, Dmitry Kovtun, well, he was supposed to give
:21:33. > :21:35.evidence to the enquiry at the Royal Courts of Justice
:21:36. > :21:42.via video link from Russia. But after keeping the enquiry
:21:43. > :21:45.waiting for three months he pulled out at the last minute saying it
:21:46. > :21:48.would jeopardise an ongoing Following his no-show the enquiry
:21:49. > :21:54.will start to hear evidence in closed sessions from
:21:55. > :22:02.the intelligence services. The ramifications for the Russian
:22:03. > :22:07.state will be exceptionally serious. I think it will alter the way that
:22:08. > :22:11.millions and millions of people around the world view Mr Putin
:22:12. > :22:25.and the Russian regime. We asked the Kremlin, Lugovoi,
:22:26. > :22:29.and Kovtun for a response, but received no reply
:22:30. > :22:34.from any of them. Given the weight of the open
:22:35. > :22:37.evidence, and what we know of the secret assessment
:22:38. > :22:41.is being made by MI6, it is hard to see how the enquiry
:22:42. > :22:44.chairman will not implicate It is now clear that the murder
:22:45. > :22:51.of Alexander Litvinenko heralded a dangerous new era
:22:52. > :23:24.for relations with the West. The Environment Agency says
:23:25. > :23:25.Britain's flood defences need a complete rethink following
:23:26. > :23:29.the widespread flooding in parts