Sergei Skripal: Wife of poisoned Alexander Litvinenko says former spy 'must have thought he was safe'

‘He was not a defector, he was not attacking Putin, he kept a low profile,’ Marina Litvinenko tells The Independent

“He must have thought he was safe. They had done the spy swap and that was the end of the matter and he thought he could live a normal life,” reflected Marina Litvinenko. “He was not a defector, he was not attacking Putin, he kept a low profile, so why should he be a target?”

Marina’s husband Alexander, unlike Sergei Skripal, had been a vocal and persistent critic of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin and a public inquiry into his death by radioactive poisoning 12 years ago concluded that Russia’s President “probably” sanctioned his assassination in London. Two Russians with intelligence connections, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, were accused of carrying out the murder. They have denied involvement.

Ms Litvinenko spoke of the dreadful memories of Alexander’s death being rekindled by what happened to Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia. “Seeing something like that, the police, the officials wearing radiation suits, the possible contamination, restaurant being shut down, it was so familiar in such a bad way. It is horrible to hear of two people being so ill. But then the questions on whether the Russians did it, if so why would they do it?”

There are no publicly available answers to what led to 66-year-old Mr Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter ending up unconscious in hospital, eight years after the former colonel in Russian military intelligence (GRU) was released by Moscow as part of a prisoner exchange.

Mr Skripal, as part of his resettlement package in the UK, was receiving an MI6 pension, but this is standard procedure and not one which should put him in the Kremlin’s crosshairs. He also gave occasional lectures on Russian spycraft to defence academies. But people who have attended these say the talks contained nothing highly classified and didn’t offer any explosive revelations.

One possible explanation for what happened came from a senior British diplomat who had served in Moscow. “Skripal was an MI6 agent who was highly successful and who passed on the identities of Russian spies, supposedly in return for money. So he had betrayed lots of his comrades, he had made lots of enemies. Maybe this was payback.”

A former intelligence officer who had served with MI6 and GCHQ acknowledged: “It was a highly successful operation. Skripal was in place as an asset for more than a decade and all at a cost of around £100,000 paid to him. But we have to accept the scenario that for us he was a great agent, but for the other side he was a traitor. Could this be something carried out by a group of Russian intelligence operatives without necessary sanctions from the top? That may be improbable but not necessarily impossible.”

The attackers did not appear to worry about collateral damage. Two police officers who were the first to come into contact with the Skripal were taken to hospital after suddenly suffering itchy eyes, rashes and wheezing along with a member of the emergency services. Ten others had symptoms of illness including vomiting. Mr Skripal’s home, the park where father and daughter were found, an Italian restaurant and a pub have all been sealed off.

Russia has categorically denied any responsibility for what happened. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s official spokesman, said his government was “open for cooperation” on the matter but has not been approached by British investigators.

But Ben Emmerson, QC, who appeared for Ms Litvinenko at the inquiry into her husband’s death, stressed that the possibility of Russian culpability must be fully investigated.

“If Sergei Skripal turns out to have been the target of a Russian assassination attempt, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary must promptly announce a public inquiry to determine the extent of Kremlin involvement,” he said.

“Theresa May initially refused to set up a public inquiry into the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko through the administration of the radioactive isotope polonium-210, which the Kremlin thought was undetectable.

“One of the reasons Mrs May gave for this cowardly decision was that a public inquiry would harm the UK’s relationship with Russia. This is not the time for prevarication. Mrs May needs to act quickly and decisively and show the Russian state that if they send murder squads to Britain, we will be dogged in our search for the truth, without fear of the diplomatic fallout.”

Alexander Litvinenko in the intensive care unit of University College Hospital in London (Getty)

Alexander Goldfarb, a Russian dissident, who was a friend of Alexander Litvinenko and also knows Mr Skripal, maintained it was justified to suspect the Kremlin.

“Any reasonable person would think immediately that Russia had the opportunity, motive and a prior history of this kind of crime so it is reasonable to think it was involved in this attack. This is the Kremlin’s modus operandi. There are plenty of precedents,” insisted Mr Goldfarb.

“What’s interesting now is that this happens just before Russia’s presidential election. Putin awarded Lugovoi a state honour and made him a national hero. He apparently sees positive electoral gain from this kind of activity. Russia is a nationalistic country where state-run propaganda portrays the UK as the enemy and people like Skripal as traitors.”

The former British diplomat, however, is sceptical of the election connection. “We all know what the election result it going to be and in any case who would Putin want to impress with this kind of thing? Those who would approve of such an attack would vote for him anyway,” he said.

Robert Emerson, a security analyst, also could not see any direct link with the Russian election: “There is simply no need for Putin to do it, the election’s hardly on a knife edge. If it was an assassination attempt, then it seems more likely it was carried out without official sanction. It is, however, very worrying that people were able to do this in Britain.”

Marina Litvinenko believes that the scenario for what had happened has been created by lax British attitudes towards certain types of Russians. “It seems that if you have enough money you are allowed in. And some of these people have all kinds of dirty links, we hear of all this money laundering taking place here. The British Government should, perhaps, think less about the money these people are bringing in and more about the safety of people in this country.”