Move by Dmitry Kovtun, who was due to testify by video link from Monday, appears designed to torpedo inquiry into killing of Russian spy

A key figure in the inquiry into the killing of Alexander Litvinenko has announced that he will no longer give evidence next week.



Dmitry Kovtun is accused of murdering Litvinenko in November 2006 during a meeting in the Millennium hotel in London. He and another Russian, Andrei Lugovoi, allegedly slipped radioactive polonium-210 into Litvinenko’s green tea.

In March, as the inquiry was wrapping up, Kovtun belatedly announced that he wanted to give evidence from Moscow. The chairman, Sir Robert Owen, agreed Kovtun could become a “core participant”. This entitled him to see 15,000 pages of evidence but not classified government files on the case reviewed by Owen in a recent secret session.

Litvinenko inquiry told Dmitry Kovtun planned to lure him to 'finish him off' Read more

Kovtun was supposed to testify by video next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Friday afternoon, however, the inquiry heard that Kovtun was pulling out, apparently citing his obligation to the “Russian investigation” into the case.

Kovtun’s move appears to be a late spoiling manoeuvre, designed to torpedo the inquiry, which was delayed for several months in order to accommodate him.

Richard Horwell, the lawyer for Scotland Yard, said Russia’s “constant posturing engenders cynicism”. He said it appeared that Kovtun’s offer to take part amounted to a fishing expedition designed to obtain “as much additional material from these proceedings as possible”.

Adam Straw, the lawyer for Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, said the Russian Federation was attempting to undermine and disrupt the inquiry. He asked Owen to draw appropriate inferences from this as to Moscow’s guilt.

Earlier on Friday the inquiry heard evidence from a German witness who said Kovtun told him he intended to lure Litvinenko to a meeting in order to “finish him off”.



The witness, known as D3, met Kovtun in Hamburg on 30 October 2006. Two days later Kovtun flew from Germany to London and allegedly poisoned Litvinenko.

According to D3, Kovtun confessed to his role in the murder plot after a meal at a Hamburg restaurant, when they were both strolling together in the street. He and Kovtun had been friends since the late 1990s, and had worked together as waiters at Il Porto, an Italian restaurant in the city’s harbour.

D3 told German police that out of the blue Kovtun mentioned Litvinenko’s name, and told him: “Litvinenko is a traitor. He has blood on his hands. He does deals with Chechens.” Kovtun also called Litvinenko “a pig”. Kovtun then told D3 he was carrying “a very expensive poison” and that he needed a cook to put the poison into Litvinenko’s food and drink.



The witness – whose testimony was read out to the inquiry – said he knew a cook, C2, who had worked with them in Il Porto and had since moved to London. D3 pointed out that C2 was married and suggested humorously it might be simpler to shoot Litvinenko instead.

Alexander Litvinenko murder inquiry: the unanswered questions Read more

Kovtun then allegedly replied: “It’s meant to set an example.”



Kovtun also said that Litvinenko was well protected and that his intention was “to lure him to an interview” in London in order to poison him. He said the poison cost an “incredibly high sum” of money. According to D3, Kovtun hinted he would be well rewarded for carrying out his mission and said “he would soon have his own flat in Moscow”.



D3 said he thought Kovtun’s story was crazy. He suggested Kovtun try to find a job instead. The two then met up again with another friend, D5, in a Hamburg casino who had been with them earlier. Asked subsequently by German police if Kovtun might have been joking, D3 said: “He spoke as he always did. It sounded like one of his attempts to do something. I didn’t take it seriously.”

It was two weeks later that D3 read in German newspapers of Litvinenko’s poisoning, and that Kovtun was a suspect in the killing. After the conversation Kovtun had stayed at D3’s flat in Hamburg and shared his bed, before flying to London early the next morning. The bed and Kovtun’s ex-wife’s home, where he also stayed, were heavily contaminated with polonium.

After the murder, and finding himself involved in an international scandal, D3 said he felt frightened, confused and afraid. He failed to mention his conversation with Kovtun during his first interview with German police, who found extensive radiation in his Hamburg flat. “I hoped the police would resolve this case alone,” he said.

During a second interview, however, D3 told detectives what Kovtun had revealed. Asked why he delayed, he said: “This awful feeling became so great. I had to get it off my chest. I could not go on.”

He added: “I curse him [Kovtun] every day, because of the whole story, because of the conversation and the other persons he also presumably contaminated, perhaps also because of the mattress [where polonium was found].” The affair left him uncertain and edgy, he said.



D3 added that Kovtun called him from Moscow once the story broke and insisted that he was innocent and had been “marked” by somebody else. D3 said he told Kovtun he was “an arsehole” for having dragged his ex-wife, Marina, and her child into this awful case, adding that if he were really innocent he had nothing to worry about.

German police initially did not believe D3’s testimony. They believed it to be contradictory, the inquiry heard. Giving evidence, DI Craig Mascall, however, said that Scotland Yard’s investigations in 2010 had shown his evidence to be true. Phone logs corroborated D3’s statements to police, Mascall said.

Hours after arriving in London, Kovtun used Lugovoi’s mobile to phone C2, the cook he had been trying to track down while in Hamburg. C2 was busy. Kovtun and Lugovoi allegedly administered the poison themselves, putting it in Litvinenko’s teapot.

The inquiry was due to resume at 9am on Monday to hear Kovtun’s evidence. It will now restart at midday. It is due to conclude next week, with Owen’s report due later this year.