The widow of murdered former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko vowed to uncover the truth about alleged Kremlin links to her husband`s poisoning Friday, the first anniversary of his death in London.
With tears in her eyes, Marina Litvinenko told reporters afterwards: "We need support, more official support, and I promise one day we definitely will know who is responsible for this because without this knowledge, we just cannot feel we`re safe."
She was speaking after she joined family and friends to commemorate her late husband and announce a formal legal complaint against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights.
Her husband, who had become a critic of President Vladimir Putin, died in a London hospital three weeks after being poisoned with radioactive substance polonium 210 while taking tea at a hotel in the city`s plush Mayfair district.
British officials said in May they wanted to charge another former agent, Andrei Lugovoi, who was with Litvinenko and two other men at the hotel, over the murder. They also called for his extradition.
But Russia refused to extradite Lugovoi, prompting tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats and a plunge in relations between the two nations.
Earlier Marina Litvinenko, her father-in-law Walter, friend Alex Goldfarb and exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky gathered to reread the letter they say Litvinenko wrote on his deathbed, outside London`s University College Hospital.
In it, he blamed the Kremlin for his death.
Marina Litvinenko`s lawyer Louise Christian confirmed that she had submitted full grounds of a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights in relation to the case. It alleges breach of the right to life and inhuman and degrading treatment.
Christian accused the Russian state of "active complicity or connivance" in the case, adding that academic research showed the polonium 210 used to poison Litvinenko was "almost certain" to have come from one state-run plant.
The Kremlin "should not simply shrug its shoulders" in relation to the claims, she added.
Litvinenko`s former spokesman Goldfarb said that those close to the poisoned man intended to step up their campaign by trying get resolutions on the killing passed in the United States Senate and British Parliament.
He said they wanted to raise "the wider issues such as security implications and political implications, which all of us think is very much symptomatic of what`s happening in Russia".
Earlier this month, Marina Litvinenko accused Putin of blocking the investigation into her husband`s death, saying the president "gave the suspect all the weight of the Russian state".
Lugovoi, who is currently running as a nationalist candidate in the Russian elections, denies involvement, and the Kremlin has also dismissed the claims.
Speaking to BBC radio earlier Friday, Marina Litvinenko said Lugovoi should come to London to "defend his innocence" -- but reiterated that in her view, powerful people were behind him in the killing.
"I`m absolutely sure he`s not the only person who`s responsible. He`s not the person who (wanted) to kill my husband, because he didn`t have (anything) against Sacha personally.
"What we`d like to know is who is behind him, who pushed him to do it."
And she added: "Of course it`s not only him. Because Russia refuses to extradite him to London, it means it is very strong power people behind him."
sections: Society, World News |
Russian News
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