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For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books. Join the declassified club@therealisclassified.com. Alexander Litvinenko has been poisoned in London. Now the race is on to work out what is slowly killing him. Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey.
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And I'm Gordon Carrera.
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And we are on the fourth episode, Gordon, of this deep dive into the life and times and death of former FSB Russian Security Service officer Alexander Litvinenko. And last time we went really deep on a particular day, November 1, 2006, which is when Litvinenko met the two men who are going to be his poisoners, his assassins, in the Pine Bar at the Millennium Hotel in London. And we left Alexander Litvinenko having taken a few sips out of a teapot. And it is going to be a fateful decision. We left him there. He was heading home and he is getting ready to fall tragically ill.
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To see how HP helps businesses work securely and productively, visit hp.com classified the rest is classified. Listeners also benefit from 10% off HP business technology with code TRIC10.
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B
That night was the anniversary of Litvinenko and his family's arrival in the United Kingdom. So. So his wife Marina had cooked his favourite chicken. They eat. But then soon after going to bed that night, he rushes to the bathroom and throws up. And then again it happens 20 minutes later and again. And there's a bit of foam and blood. By the early hours of the morning of November 2, he says to Marina he thinks he might have been poisoned. And during that day, he can't keep food or drink down his vomiting, his stomach cramps. Interestingly enough, one of the people he calls that morning of November 2nd is Andrei Lugovoy. The guy, you know, who poisoned him in the Pine Bar. And he says he's got to cancel their meeting that they'd planned with the due diligence company because he's feeling ill. And then the next day, of course, Lugovoy and Kovtun, his partner, fly back to Moscow and leave the scene. Whether Litvinenko blames Lugovoy or thinks it's him, we'll come back to that, because it's an interesting question. But Marina then calls an ambulance that night. So we now head into the night of November 2, early hours of November 3. Paramedics come, but they say he's just suffering a bacterial infection and should just drink more water. But things get worse during the day and by 4pm, an ambulance is going to take him to Barnet Hospital in the North London suburbs.
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When he had first fallen ill, Litvinenko had asked Marina to bring a couple phones for him to the hospital. And on one phone, again, it's, it's fascinating, isn't it? He makes a call to, again, Andrey Lukavoy and Litvinenko. I mean, I guess he's thinking like many of us would if we, if we had fallen ill, that we have, we have work, you know, arrangements and commitments and we need to start canceling things and moving things around. And so Litvinenko explains to Lugovoy that he won't be able to go on that trip to Spain, the, the business trip to Spain. It is interesting because Litvinenko seems to think at this point or suspect that he's been poisoned. I would maybe I'm just. I'm rocking some hindsight bias here, Gordon, but I would wonder if in the back of his mind he's thinking about Lou Gavoy, Cob tune, the tea and the Pine bar. But he doesn't seem to really be behaving as if he believes that Covtud and Lukavoi are his poisoners yet.
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B
No, I think that's absolutely right. I think the realization, I think it might be there as a part, the swirl of possibilities. And of course, he's getting ill. So, you know, his mind may not be working 100%, but I don't think he's settled on them as the, as the killers. There are certainly other possibilities in his mind. And yes, it's amazing. He's calling Lugovoy to say we can't go to Spain. He uses the other phone. So interesting. Two phones Marina brings to Barnet Hospital and he uses a different phone to call a guy called Martin. Now, the fact he's using a different phone is maybe a clue that Martin is someone interesting. And we'll, we'll come back to Martin because he's going to appear a little bit later in the story. But at Barnet Hospital now, there's this medical mystery which is unfolding and which is going to unfold over the next few weeks because they don't know what's wrong with him. And there's this initial diagnosis of gastroenteritis with mild dehydration, which they assume he's got because he's throwing up. But then the results of those initial blood tests show that although his platelet count was normal, his haemoglobin and white blood cell count were high. So he's put on antibiotics. But then they see his platelet count fall to an unusually low level and then the red and white blood cell counts fall even further. And this is all a bit odd. It just doesn't fit the, the pattern for a normal illness. It's a mystery for the staff. And on November 7th, Marina is going to ask a doctor if it could be poisoning. And she says to the doctor, you know, he knows dangerous people. Friends of his, friends of ours have been poisoned, but the doctors at this point just don't take it that seriously.
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It reminds me a little bit of the reaction to Georgi Markov being poisoned by the ricin tipped umbrella, that series we did last year, where these poisonings are so uncommon and the, you know, the initial kind of symptoms could be explained in so many different ways that the poisoning victims kind of get dismissed right off the bat. Just say, oh, you know, no way. This is something. No way kind of crazy in retrospect. The doctor says it's unlikely, but then, I mean, Litvinenko from the hospital gives an interview to the BBC's Russian service where he says he's recovering from being poisoned. So he, whatever the medical staff says, he, he's decided at this point that it's poison.
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B
And it's interesting because in that interview, I was looking at a transcript of it just earlier, he mentions he met someone the day of the poisoning and he's talking about Scaramella here, Mario Scaramella, the consultant on the Mitrochian Commission, who, who he'd met in the Itsu Sushi bar that day, and he's talking about him. He doesn't mention the others, Logovoi and Kovtu. Now, whether it's because he's business partners, whether there's something else going on here, whether he doesn't suspect them, not entirely sure, but we're going to come back to that. But it's interesting. People, even his friends, like Alex Goldfarb, who hears about this and hears about him being ill, are pretty skeptical about the poisoning. They'll come visit, they'll start to take it seriously. But the BBC Russian Service interview is his attempt to get people interested in this, but at this point it's just not breaking through. And in the meantime he's getting worse. And that's the problem. November 12th, Marina, who's visiting every day, strokes his hair to comfort him and she stares at her hand in horror because clumps of his, his sandy blonde hair are coming away as she strokes his hair. And he actually asked for it all to be shaved off. She keeps some of the hair and that will actually come in useful. So the doctors are really confused because it just doesn't fit. It does strike one doctor that the symptoms were similar to a patient suffering from acute leukemia who'd been treated with intensive chemotherapy. So they'd had their total body irradiation done prior to a bone marrow transplant. So there is. People are starting to kind of go through different theories, aren't they, about what
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A
it could be now, starting on the 14th and 15th of November. So, I mean, a couple weeks after he's been poisoned and started showing symptoms, the staff actually start testing for radiation, for poisoning, and they use a Geiger counter, which comes up with nothing. The reason being that it detects the wrong type of, of radiation inside him. It's looking for, you know, gamma and more common types of radiation instead of the alpha radiation that is, that is destroying his body. And the next day, you know, the staff wonders, okay, well, maybe it's thallium poisoning. Symptoms sort of fit, but, but not quite. And then on the 15th, Scotland Yard is finally informed, which seems late to me, I have to say, but there's a lot of uncertainty swirling over the case in these first couple weeks.
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B
That's right. And I think that reflects the fact they're not sure that it is poisoning. And it's only around the 15th that they think, okay, this really could be poisoning, because nothing else explains it. Maybe we had better inform Scotland Yard. And he's going to be transferred on November 17 to University College Hospital, UCH Hospital, which is a big recently built tower block in central London near Warren street tube. Professor John Henry, who's an internationally renowned toxicologist with an interest in rare poisons, is going to get involved. And looking at it, he's going to talk to Friends like Alex goldfarb on the 18th and say it does look like this thallium poisoning. And one of the reasons why that comes up is it is something that the Russians had used in the past, that the KGB, for instance, had used it in the late 50s. There's this Russian intelligence defector, Nikolai Kholkov, who defects in 1957, he's an assassin and then he's actually poisoned with thallium, with a drink with thallium. So they think, oh, well, maybe that could be it. But it's still not quite fitting. But the key thing here is that the police are involved and he's been trying to get people convinced of his poisoning and that that happened. And finally the police are gonna turn up. They initially are actually on their way to Barnett hospital on the 17th, but by the time they're on their way, they're told, no, he's being moved to uch hospital. Interestingly enough, it's two officers from the murder command. So the people who would deal with a regular criminal event and the briefing they get is there's someone in a hospital claiming they've been poisoned, probably nothing, but it's going to change their lives, I think, for these policemen who go. Because they turn up. So around midnight, just after midnight. So we're really into the early hours of the 18th, they're there and a detective inspector from the Metropolitan Police's homicide team is sitting by Litvinenko's bed. And it's interesting because the medical team are still kind of dismissive of all this and give the police the impression they're getting in the way. And the police say to the medical team, well, can you guarantee he will still be alive tomorrow for us to talk to him? And the medical team have to go, well, we can't guarantee anything. And so the police go, well, then you may think we're getting in the way, but we're going to start these interviews right now because, you know, we can't wait. We don't know what's going to happen.
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Then in something that does feel very much out of a spy film, I guess, the two officers sit down in the room. They've got an old fashioned tape recorder, not an iPhone, recording the conversation. There's a uniformed officer at the door, but no armed guard. And then Lynn Fidenko starts in with his kind of like testimony, you know, his, his last statement, he says, I have name Alexander Litvinenko. I am former kgb, FSB officer. And then he kind of goes on in this, you know, faltering English and Explains really, his whole story. And, you know, the policemen kind of sit there wrapped, and it's something that I'm sure they. They've never forgotten.
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That's right, because they're going to sit there for hours as he tells them a story of his time in the fsb, of meeting Putin. And. And at this point, he's still alert. He can even occasionally get up from his hospital bed, walk around the room, but he's clearly in pain. He gets up at one point, they remember, and he looks out of the window across London, and he's thinking hard about the events that led to his illness. And he wants to share every detail with the police. And there are a lot of extraordinary aspects to this case, but one of them was the police have in front of them what one would call a living murder victim, a man who was dying, but who can interview. And as with any murder inquiry, the key is to find the point of contact between the victim and the weapon that killed him. And normally you're reconstructing that, but here you can interview the person, you can say, tell us who you met, tell us, you know, what you did on that day. And I think because he's a former FSB officer, he's really good at recollecting things. He notices things, doesn't he?
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Well, yeah, I guess he has been, you know, he's been trained to take in the environment and to log details and anomalies and use that to build a picture of the world around him. And that's an immensely useful skill for these. These investigators. And it's interesting because pretty soon thereafter, Litvinenko focuses in on three suspects, doesn't he, who he thinks must have been involved in some way, because they're the
- [15:02]
B
three people he was with on the day he fell ill. And the three men are, first of all, Mario Scaramella, the person with whom he'd eaten at that Itsu sushi bar on the afternoon of the 1st of November. Also Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, who he'd met later in the Pine Bar. But it's interesting because at this point, he tells the police officer, Detective Inspector Hyatt, he says, although he'd spoken publicly, meaning the BBC interview, about his meeting with Garamella, he hadn't talked about his meeting with Lugovoy and Kovtun. Now he will say and suggest that that's partly because he doesn't want to tip them off, he doesn't want to show his hand, that he knows it might be them, knowing that they probably left the country or that they have left the country, and he's hoping that might encourage them to come back. But he does seem to have told some close friends and associates at this point that he did think it might be Scarabella who'd done it. And so it is possible he's trying to play a clever game to lure Kovtun and Lugovoy back. But actually, others do think that he's also slightly embarrassed that if it was Covtun and Lugovoy, he's made a mistake in his own judgment. I think that's also quite challenging for him. So initially he is focusing, I think, a bit more on Scaramella.
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What would have been Scaramella's motive? We wouldn't exactly know what Lugovoy and Coffee's motive was unless we talked about it over the last couple episodes. But what. What could have possibly been the reason? Scaramella seems like the least likely of the three, because he's not. He's not going back, back and forth to Moscow.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that's right. There isn't an obvious motive. But I do think this, this sense in which Litvinenko is either publicly, but maybe even privately wary of pointing the finger at the people who really did do it. Maybe. I mean, Yuri Shvets, this former KGV officer who Litvinenko knew, also thinks that Litvinenko was a bit embarrassed by the possibility that he had trusted his assassins. He says Litvinenko was a professional. He was always saying he can identify an enemy a mile away. What if he'd really screwed up this time? So there is this slight tension about who he's accusing. But these interviews, this first interview, which, which happens with the police, it starts around midnight, goes on well past two in the morning. And, you know, you get to past two in the morning and the police officers are obviously getting a bit tired and they ask Litvinenko, aren't you tired? You might be tired. He says, I'm happy to carry on. And it's only a quarter to three in the morning. They finish that interview at uch. I mean, it's amazing. And they're so intrigued by what they heard that they don't go back to the office or home or wherever they were due to go. But about 4 in the morning, they go, they're outside the Itzu Sushi bar in Piccadilly where Litvinenko met Scaramella, because they just want to see it.
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We need to put this sushi bar on our Spy tour of London, Gordon. We'll start with a lunch at Itsu Sushi.
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I think it's another place, a bit like the Pine Bar, which doesn't like to talk about its radioactive past. So I think we'll have to be a bit careful about. It was definitely closed at 4 o' clock in the morning, but, yeah, it just shows how the story must have really captured them, I think.
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A
And this will be the first of four interview sessions that take place over the next three days. But Litvinenko, his condition is worsening, he's vomiting blood, his heartbeat's weakening and then on November 19, he goes into the ICU.
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B
Yeah. But despite this huge pain, he keeps talking to them, even though at one point the case, I think, was close to being abandoned, as the police couldn't find any evidence of the deliberate poisoning. But he just wants to keep talking. And at 5pm on November 20, a senior investigating officer, known in the police jargon as an sio, is assigned to the case. And importantly, they're from the Counter Terrorist Command and that handles national security cases. And it's an officer called Detective Superintendent Clive Timmons. He's hardly ever spoken about this publicly, but we're going to be speaking to him. You're going to be able to hear from him in a bonus episode for our club members. So do join the declassified club if you want to hear. It's an extraordinary account of what it was like to be the lead investigator into this absolutely extraordinary case. And now as well, outside the hospital, you've got public interest growing, particularly the media, because the media. Here's where I come into the story, David, you'll be pleased to know you've been waiting for that.
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I have been waiting. Bated breath. When will Gordon Carrera's scoop come into the story? We're there at last, Litvinio.
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I didn't get the first interview, actually. The first interview in his hospital bed had been done. The BBC Russian Service did it and then the Sunday Times journalist, and that appeared on 19 November, and that caused a big fuss. And I was actually going through my notes and I could see that I did a report the next morning on the BBC on the 20th of November, and I'd already spoken to a source I still, 20 years on, will be delicate about who that was, although I do think I know who, said that they thought he'd been poisoned. And at the time, I think they suggested to me it was more likely to be thallium. And they pointed at the fact that thallium had been used by Russians elsewhere in Europe, but not in the uk, they said. And they pointed me to the fact that they were seeing lots of Russian intelligence activity in the uk, not necessarily at Cold War levels, but not far off. And so at this point, I'm starting to cover the story and lots of other people are. I remember standing outside UCH Hospital in those days reporting, you know, that inside Litvinenko was fighting for his life and saying that. And so the media scrum is also really growing as, as this word spreads that there's a former Russian FSB officer who most people had never heard of, but claiming he'd been poisoned.
- [21:11]
A
And the police are still doing their interviews, aren't they? I mean, they're still talking to Litvinenko as much as they can, given his condition. And I think this is. This is fascinating because at the end of one of the tapes, the police officer asks, I guess, a very simple question which is, can you think of anybody else who may wish to do this sort of harm to you and Litvidenko? Let's just say. Oh, he doesn't. He doesn't point the finger at the actual poisoners. Let's say he kind of. This is where I think it. To me, it's fascinating because he says, I have no doubt whatsoever this was done by the Russian secrets services. I know the order about such a killing of a citizen of another country on its territory, especially if it had something to do with Great Britain, could have been given only by one person. And then the police officer asks, would you tell us who that person is? That person is the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. So pointing the finger in high places, he is, yeah.
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B
He. He thinks he knows who is ultimately responsible for poisoning him. And we'll come back, I think, at the end of this series to the evidence for that. But let's take a break there and when we come back, we'll look at who comes to see Litvinenko and at his final days.
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A
Hello, everybody. We've got some very exciting news to share with you.
- [22:33]
B
That's right. If you're thinking about joining the declassified club, becoming what we call a secret squirrel, then you're in luck, as we're currently holding a summer sale.
- [22:44]
A
That's right. From now until the end of August, you can get an extra 20% off an annual subscription. All you need to do is head to the restisclassified.com and use the code summer26 when you purchase an annual plan.
- [22:58]
B
It is perfect, isn't it, David, for those warmer months Nothing says relaxing on holiday like geopolitical intrigue and unexplained diplomatic incidents. And we've got brilliant content lined up for the next few months, including a series on the five five Eyes intelligence sharing network and an exclusive insight into the sabotage operation behind the destruction of the Nordstream pipeline in 2022.
- [23:23]
A
Plus, your summer travels are the perfect time to catch up on exclusive bonus content from our archive. Listen to our interview with former Director General of MI5, Jonathan Evans. Join us for a KGB hotel tour in Tallinn or dive into one of our Iraq WMD series bonus episodes.
- [23:40]
B
But the discount won't last forever though, will it? So make the most of it before the end of August. Sign up now and join the club.
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C
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A
Well, welcome back. And Gordon, you've teed up this mysterious visitor, Martin, who. Yeah, I think all of our listeners know who Martin works for, but. But I think it's time that we tell them.
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B
Yeah, exactly. He must have slipped past me while I was reporting outside anonymously, as any good spy would. But yes, at the second police hospital interview, Litvinenko's condition was clearly worse. The pair of officers are believing it's a. A poisoning now, and they ask Litvinenko, whom he met the day before he fell ill. And Litvinenko says there was one meeting at 4pm on October 31st in Waterstones bookstore in Piccadilly. Fine bookstore, great bookstore, great bookstore. It's a really good one. Lots anyway. Yeah, floors and floors of it and cafes and stuff. But he. Litvinenko won't provide the man's name while the Tape is running with the police, and the police, of course, go. It could be absolutely vital you tell us who that person is, because they're thinking, well, could it? Could it could. It could have been poisoned the day before. And Litvinenko says, you can call him and he will tell you. And at that point, I love the details, the tape gets stopped and you can find the transcripts for these tapes. So that's why we know exactly what happened. And it's two hours before it's turned on again, the tape recorder. And in those two hours, Martin has actually come and gone from the hospital room. And we know he embraces Litvinenko when he arrives. And it's clear that the pair know each other really well. And then the tape goes back on and the officer asks if the person who'd just been in the hospital, Martin, was the man whom Litvinenko had met at Waterstones. And Litvinenko said he was. And then it's so interesting, the police officer says on the transcript, on the tape, I don't want to ask you what you talked about with that person.
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A
I mean, that's wise. That's wise.
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B
It's wise he doesn't want to know. It's so interesting, isn't it? Because you can immediately sense that, you know, the police are realizing this case is kind of bumping up against MI6. And the fact clearly that Martin is an MI6, shocking.
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I didn't see it coming. I didn't see it coming.
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B
But, I mean, you'd love to know from Martin what they talked about.
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A
So it's been two weeks since he's been poisoned. Had Martin been visiting or had there been interaction with Litvinenko up to that point with MI6 or no?
- [27:19]
B
Well, I think there was definitely interaction because he'd called Martin with his special Mi6 Martin phone when he'd first gone into Barnett that Marina had bought. So I think they'd been in touch and it's entirely possible Martin had been visiting regularly in that period. And I think MI6 as well, my senses initially as well, were not willing to believe the idea he'd been poisoned, but increasingly are coming to that view. And of course, it is interesting that it's at this point, around this time, that the case is treated as a poisoning and handed to the Metropolitan Police's Counterterrorism Command. Because we should explain to people that the Counterterrorism Command sounds like it does terrorism, but actually does anything national security related, and their offices are vetted, are cleared to see secret intelligence and therefore to work with MI5 and MI6. So you can see also the transfer of the case to Clive Timmons is also part of MI6 taking this seriously and the realization that there's going to be secret bits to investigating it.
- [28:28]
A
Well, and now MI6 is trying to figure out what's going on and the medical staff, the police, I mean, there are no answers at this point as what. What's actually affecting him and what will be. The last police interview comes on the evening of November 20th. I mean, we're almost three weeks after the poisoning at this point. Litvinenko has been moved into intensive care that day. Wires and monitors all, all around him. He doesn't have any hair. It's been shaved off at this point, and he's lying there. I think this is. Is this Gordon, when this icon, really. I think it's pretty iconic photo.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Is taken of Litvinenko lying there in his. In his green hospital gown.
- [29:16]
B
Yeah, it's. It's interesting. The photo is really interesting because he's got these people around him, Alex Goldfarb, people around Boris Berezovsky, who also understand this is becoming a big media story. There's public interest in this. It's important to get out the message that he's been poisoned, and one of the ways will be through a picture. Marina is quite reluctant about the picture. I think she doesn't want to reveal to the world. You can understand why, can't you, that how ill he is, how he looks. But she agrees to have this picture taken, which is this iconic picture of him. Actually, it's a remarkable picture because he looks. He looks. I mean, he does look very different without his hair, but he does, at that point, look defiant somehow against what's happening. And it's that look of defiance he has, which I think is really powerful. So that's happening. The police officers are still there. They're getting to their last interview now with him. One thing he wants to talk about to them is the fact that just last month, in October, he got his British citizenship. And he says to the police, I love this country and its people, although, unfortunately, I haven't learned English language completely yet. I'm proud to say I'm a British citizen. Yes, they did try to kill me and possibly I may die, but I will die as a free person and my son and wife are free people and Britain is a great country. Now, as that last interview is coming to an end, Litvinenko is asked if there's anything else he wants to say. And he remembers taking his son to the Tower of London, showing him the British crown and saying, this is a country that you should defend. But he makes one last request for the police officers. And at this point, I mean, his condition is really worsening. He's actually struggling to talk because there's blisters on his throat. And he says to the police, I want you to pursue the case wherever it goes. And he says, I know there might be political interests which could get in the way. He's upset, for instance, that British political leaders, American political leaders, are sitting round the table with Putin at the G8 summit and at other meetings. And he knows that that may cause things to be difficult, but he wants them to keep going. And at that point, the buzzer sound signaling the tape is about to finish. And Litvinenko tells Brent Hyatt, the detective Inspector, you know, I trust you completely, bring this case to an end as far as it's possible. And Brent Hyatt makes the Russian a promise. I will do absolutely everything within my power to ensure this case is properly investigated. And I think it is testament that in this case, the police don't let him down. They really will pursue this case.
- [32:01]
A
But of course, Litvinenko is beginning to surrender to the radiation that is very much just cooking his body from the inside out. And it's on that Tuesday the. 21st November, that this iconic photograph is taken, that. That defiant look at his eyes across his face as he ventured Gordon. And it's. It's still a mystery what is afflicting him. Litvinenko does not have any significant damage to his. His nerve endings, relatively low thallium levels. So it doesn't fit with the theory, of course, of thallium poisoning. And then on the 21st, the medical staff, the examiners, shift to a theory that it could be radiation of some kind. And of course, at this point with him, he's not. He's not dead yet. But, you know, one tool in a murder inquiry is of course going to be a post mortem which may shed light, the investigators think, on what. What is actually killing Alexandra Litvinenko.
- [33:04]
B
That's right. I mean, you normally carry out a post mortem on someone who's died. But it's back to the idea of this being a really unusual murder inquiry in which the victim is still alive. And so Clive Timmons, this police officer who's in charge, orders what he describes as a living post mortem, a battery of tests and examinations to try and find out what's happening. He holds up two pictures, one before where Litvinenko is fit and healthy, and one after where he's pale and emaciated, and he says, how did he go from that to this? And they're looking at everything. They're looking at, you know, the Geiger counter hadn't shown up any radiation. But they do send a urine sample to the Atomic Weapons Establishment, awe, which is at Aldermast and a famous site which builds the UK's nuclear weapons.
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A
Probably not accustomed to receiving urine samples at the Atomic Weapons Establishment.
- [33:55]
B
No, I don't know, maybe they are. But it's, you know, it's a strange, interesting place where the. Some of the most secret work goes on. So Litvinenko is struggling. He actually has two cardiac arrests, has to be resuscitated. But then something I find quite odd happens during this time, these last days. Effectively, Ahmed Zakaev, his Chechen friend, who's also in exile in London, comes to visit and brings an imam to Litvinenko's bedside. Now, Litvinenko had been technically baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church, but he'd so become, I guess, emotionally attached to the Chechen cause. He'd expressed a desire to convert to Islam, and they'd been talking about that while he was in Barnet Hospital. And so he's gonna undertake a ceremony at this point. And Litvinenko's father, Walter, also arrives from Russia on this day, the 21st of November. And Litvinenko tells his father about the conversion. And the father says, it doesn't matter. At least you're not a Communist. Which is one way of seeing these things.
- [35:00]
A
I. I would not have had, when we started this, this series, or even this episode, I would not have had deathbed conversion to Islam on my bingo card. But here we are.
- [35:11]
B
It's kind of curious, strange detail, isn't it? Comes out.
- [35:13]
A
It comes out of nowhere. Kind of.
- [35:15]
B
It does, it does. But I think it makes you realize how attached he'd become to the Chechen cause, which I think is also interesting. So now we get to November 22nd. There's a big meeting here of the police, atomic weapons establishment people, medical consultants, Clive Timmons, the police officer in the chair. They go through all the possible options now that thallium has effectively been ruled out. Some of them are really obscure. Something called Stevens Johnson Syndrome. I've never heard of that. But I think they're having to go through really obscure things because nothing else fits. And then at this meeting, one person from AWE chirps up and says they found a tiny spike of polonium in the urine sample, but it was probably just cross contamination from something else. And Clive Timmons goes, you mean plutonium? Because of course, no one's heard of polonium. You can't blame him for that. And the AWE person goes, no, polonium. And literally no one had heard of it. And we'll come back, you'll be pleased to know, into what it is. But people think, well, we've never heard of this. It seems really obscure and bizarre. So they say, well, to test properly, we need a litre of urine to see if there's any real evidence, rather than just a small sample.
- [36:26]
A
It's a lot of urine.
- [36:27]
B
You are taking the piss, said Timmons bluntly, meaning, how are we going to get a liter of urine? Because he's not producing any, and only then realizing the slight irony of his words. Because Litvinenko stopped eating and drinking and not producing any urine. But actually they kept a sample, fortunately, from a week earlier, which gets sent off here on the 22nd. There's a filmmaker who comes in to see Litvinenko and takes some video. It's only released later. And it's really haunting. I mean, it's very different from the ghostly, defiant image. This is him just looking, I mean, terrible. There's wires everywhere and then there's this 8pm the evening of the 22nd of November. Marina is there, but she tells him she has to go, she has to go home. The got their son. She feels guilty, you know, don't worry, she says, I'll be back tomorrow. And he just says, I love you so much. And those are the last words he speaks to her.
- [37:22]
A
The urine sample arrives at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in the early afternoon of 23rd November, and the results are confirmed. It's polonium contamination. And the staff at AWE call Clive Timmons just after 3pm to tell him. And he's. They say he's dead and no, he's not, he's alive. Clive's thinking, no, they explain, he's absolutely going to die. Nobody, nobody survives this. And so the mystery is solved. He's still alive. The mystery is solved, but now he just has hours left to live.
- [37:59]
B
That's right. So it's at 8.51pm on Thursday 23rd November, that Litubinenko suffers a third cardiac arrest. An ICU consultant on duty tries to resuscitate him, doesn't work. And at 9:21pm he's pronounced dead from multiple organ failure. So the news is going to get out. And after his death, a statement that he'd agreed to just before he died is going to be read on the steps of the hospital the following day by Alex Goldfarb, his friend, one of the people who'd got him out on his journey to London. Now, Marina, like with the photograph, had been cautious about this idea of the statement because she'd always hoped he'd survive. And she'd said that preparing this statement to be read in the event of his death was like giving up. But now it's there and it's read out, and I think it's worth reading it all, isn't it, David? Because I think it's a really powerful statement. I thank my wife, Marina, who has stood by me. My love for her and our son knows no bounds. But as I lie here, I can distinctly hear the beating of wings of the angel of death. I may be able to give him the slip, but I have to say my legs do not run as fast as I would like. I think, therefore, that this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition. You may succeed in silencing me, but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty, or any civilized value. You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilized men and women. You may succeed in silencing one man, but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me, but to beloved Russia and its people.
- [40:09]
A
And it's at this point, with cameras filming the statement outside the hospital, that this news story absolutely explodes. Because not only do we have a former Russian spy dead in London, but he says he's been poisoned by Putin. And then the UK Health Protection Agency reveals that they have found traces of a radioactive substance in him and they need to start looking for it all around London. So maybe there. Gordon. Let's end this episode and when we come back, we'll see how investigators, the police, the spies, track this polonium trail, this radioactive trail all through the city of London.
- [40:57]
B
That's right. And just a reminder, if you want to hear the rest of this series, you can right away by joining the Declassified club@the restisclassified.com Also, please do sign up for our newsletter if you're a member of the club, you will also be able to hear that interview from Clive Timmons, the police officer who we've talked about in this episode, who led the investigation, and, of course, tickets for the live show on the 4th and 5th of September. But otherwise, we'll see you next time.
- [41:21]
A
We'll see you next time.
- [41:29]
C
This is an urgent appeal from the Disasters Emergency Committee. Two devastating earthquakes have hit Venezuela, resulting in widespread destruction. Thousands have been killed and injured and survivors desperately need food, water, shelter and medical care. Go to dec.org.uk to donate or text DEC to 70150 to give £10 texts cost your donation plus standard network rate. See website for T's and C's. Thank you.