The case of Litvinenko is certainly damning - but here's why it won't put an end to UK-Russia relations

With the spotlight so narrowly on Litvinenko and his death, there was no room for any real consideration, or even curiosity - at least none that reached the public domain - about how the polonium arrived in the UK

Alexander Litvinenko pictured at the Intensive Care Unit of University College Hospital on November 20, 2006 in London (Natasja Weitsz/Getty Images)

Alexander Litvinenko died in London on 23 November, 2006. A healthy 43-year-old, he suffered a particularly gruesome death, poisoned - as it turned out when it was too late to save him - by the radioactive substance, polonium-210. Yesterday, nine years and two months later, a retired high court judge, Sir Robert Owen, found that he was murdered by two Russian assassins in an operation “probably approved” by the head of Russia’s security service “and also by President Putin”.

These bald headlines sent an immediate new chill through UK relations with Russia. While ostensibly forthright and harsh, however, Sir Robert’s ultimate verdict was also nuanced.

He was “sure” he said, that Litvinenko had been deliberately poisoned and that the two Russians, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, had intended to kill him. There was “a strong probability” that they were acting under the direction of Russia’s security services, the FSB, And it was an operation, he said in his final sentence, that was “probably approved” by the head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, and by President Putin. Note the varying degrees of probability.

Those small gradations allow the UK government more leeway in their response (what they actually do, rather than the bluster of first reactions) and they blur Putin’s alleged involvement more than Kremlin may have feared, however indignant Russian spokespeople appeared to be yesterday. So bad are UK-Russian relations overall - and such is the UK interest in improving them, because of Russia’s mediating role with Iran and Syria - that I would hazard that there is “a strong probability”, to borrow Sir Robert’s technique, that bilateral relations will not actually become much worse.

Which is not to say that the report of the Litvinenko inquiry presents no risk. But risk is rather of a different kind: that those (especially in the UK) who stop at the headlines “Putin guilty”, or even read the published version of the report, will accept that a proper investigation has taken place and that British justice has been done, at least in so far as it can be done without the two accused being brought to trial.

Having sat through many of the inquiry’s public sessions, I beg to differ. The UK is exceptionally good at process, and the process sometimes obscures gaps in the substance. So it is with the Litvinenko inquiry.

This is not to disparage Sir Robert Owen’s chairmanship. He did his best to honour his opening promise to conduct a “full, fair and fearless investigation”, and he delivered his report on time and under budget, which offers a lesson to many. Yet there was much about the process that was unsatisfactory.

First, it was billed a public inquiry, yet crucial evidence was heard only by the judge and a small group of other people, including counsel for the Home Office. This is because it dealt with the UK security services and was deemed potentially to affect national security. Some of that evidence was significant enough to warrant the only recommendation Sir Robert chose to make - a recommendation which also remains under wraps, for the same reason, and will do pretty much in perpetuity. To call such an inquiry “public” is flattery of the first order.

In public, the inquiry heard fleeting references to Litvinenko’s UK security minder, known as “Martin”, who possibly questioned him on his deathbed. It was stated, though not expressly confirmed, that Litvinenko was paid by MI6. It was possible to divine that he was issued with passports in other names, besides the one he acquired when he became a UK citizen shortly before he died, and that he travelled on MI6 business. How would UK security be harmed if more of this were made public? As with WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden’s revelations, “rendition” and the like, our security services (too?) often receive the benefit of official doubt.

The UK’s “international relations” were given as another reason for secrecy: the potential damage from certain disclosures to relations with Russia. An intriguing leak suggested the best evidence of the two Russians’ guilt came from US (NSA) intercepts. If true, should this be too sensitive for the public to know? And might it rather be the US relationship that might be jeopardised?

There was also a glaring gap in the terms of reference. With the spotlight so narrowly on Litvinenko and his death, there was no room for any real consideration, or even curiosity - at least none that reached the public domain - about how the polonium arrived in the UK. Yet this represented a grave breach of security that threatened the health of Londoners and many travellers. The public health issue was, apparently, the most urgent question the then Government discussed after Litvinenko’s death. Yet this was not part of the inquiry.

Even without the secrecy and the substance gaps, the inquiry would still have been unsatisfactory because of how it came to be constituted. The UK makes an enormous fuss about the “rule of law”, at least when we want other states to observe it. Yet the best part of eight years passed between what was described by Marina Litvinenko’s counsel as “an act of nuclear terrorism on British soil” and any consideration of this atrocity in public in a court of law. An inquest is a judicial requirement in unusual or unexplained deaths such as this, although it can on occasion be pre-empted by a criminal trial. Yet all prospect of a trial faded, without any inquest coming into view. It was only constituted after Litvinenko’s widow appealed (at her own and charitable expense) against a decision by the Home Secretary. The inquest was then re-designated a public inquiry at Sir Robert’s request, so that secret evidence could be, if not publicly heard, at least admitted.

It is this unconscionable delay and the speculation that swirled around it that give succour to those Russian officials and others who claim that the whole process has been politically motivated. Marina Litvinenko insisted, practically from the day her husband died, that her faith in British justice would be vindicated, and she welcomed the inquiry findings yesterday. After nine long years, her faith in British justice may have emerged intact; I am less sure about mine.