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Updated 4.14pm
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR Putin ‘probably approved’ the murder of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko according to a UK public inquiry.
However, the Kremlin has dismissed the findings as “a joke”.
Judge Robert Owen’s report says that he is certain Litvinenko was given tea laced with a fatal dose of polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006.
He says there is a “strong probability” that the FSB directed the killing, and the operation was “probably approved” by Putin. The FSB is Russia’s security service, a successor to the Cold War-era KGB.
More than nine years ago, Litvenenko had tea with two Russian men at a London hotel.
Three weeks later, he died of radioactive poisoning — after making a deathbed claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered his killing.
Moscow has always denied involvement, and almost a decade on, no one has been brought to justice.
Owen heard from 62 witnesses over six months of public hearings and — behind closed doors — saw secret intelligence evidence about Litvinenko and his links to UK spy agencies.
The judge has named Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi as the culprits, and says he has seen evidence of Russian state involvement.
Putin’s spokesperson dismissed the results of the inquiry as a possible “joke”.
“Maybe this is a joke,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
More likely it can be attributed to fine British humour — the fact that an open public inquiry is based on the classified data of special services, unnamed special services.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement: “We had no reason to expect that the final findings of the politically motivated and extremely non-transparent process… would suddenly become objective and unbiased.”
Who was Alexander Litvinenko?
Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, told Owen’s inquiry that her husband was a loyal intelligence agent who grew disillusioned with Russia’s 1990s war in Chechnya and by what he saw as corruption within the FSB security service, successor to the KGB.
He fled to Britain in 2000 and was granted asylum, becoming a vocal critic of Putin and his allies.
When Litvinenko became violently ill in November 2006 at the age of 44, doctors were baffled. The cause would likely have remained a mystery were it not for a urine test conducted by a doctor, on a hunch, shortly before Litvinenko died. It revealed the presence of polonium-210, an isotope that is deadly if ingested in tiny quantities.
Litvinenko’s body was so radioactive that the autopsy was conducted by medics in protective clothing and ventilation hoods. A lawyer for the police said the killing may have exposed hundreds or even thousands of Londoners to radioactive contamination.
Who killed him?
British police have previously accused Kovtun and Lugovoi, the two Russians Litvinenko met for tea, of carrying out the killing, sponsored by elements in the Kremlin. Both deny involvement, and Moscow refuses to extradite them.
British detectives and scientists told the inquiry that a radioactive trail was left at hotels, restaurants and other sites across London visited by Kovtun and Lugovoi, a former FSB agent who is now a Russian lawmaker and was decorated by Putin for services to the nation.
Many Russian officials had reason to dislike Litvinenko. His family says he was working for MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service. He had accused the Russian government of involvement in a series of apartment building explosions in 1999 that were blamed on Chechen rebels, and alleged links between senior Kremlin figures and organised crime.
What could the reaction be?
Litvinenko’s wife Marina, dressed in black and accompanied by her 21-year-old son Anatoly, embraced supporters after the inquiry gave its verdict.
She has spent years pushing for a public inquiry to be held and had called for sanctions against Russia and a travel ban on Putin.
“I’m very pleased that the words my husband spoke on his deathbed when he accused Mr Putin of his murder have been proved true in an English court,” she told reporters outside the court.
She told AFP after the hearing:
I can’t say it is what I hoped for but I really appreciate it.
Litvinenko’s death soured British-Russian relations for years, and Russian involvement in Ukraine’s civil conflict made things even worse, bringing sanctions on Moscow by Western countries including Britain.
A finding of direct involvement in the killing by senior Russians could cause a further deterioration.
But Owen’s report comes as Russia and Britain are both involved in airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria. British diplomats believe Russia — an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad — is key to ending that country’s brutal civil war. Russia, its economy hurt by low oil prices, would like to see an end to sanctions.
It may be in the interests of both Britain and Russia to limit the fallout from the Litvinenko killing.
In any case, there may be little Britain can do to influence behaviour in the Kremlin. The Soviet-era KGB didn’t hesitate to kill its enemies on foreign soil, sometimes with obscure poisons — Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov died after he was stabbed with a ricin-tipped umbrella on London’s Waterloo Bridge in 1978. Some believe the Kremlin’s attitude to opponents has changed little.
Lough noted that Putin allegedly once told a Russian journalist “that he distinguished between enemies and traitors”.
“He said that with enemies you can find a common language and agree on things, but in the case of traitors, they need to be liquidated.”
Contains reporting by AFP.
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So it costs the economy € 1m a day. I wonder how much it costs the economy when employees take a tea break, talk to their colleagues, text a friend, watch non work related internet content, use the toilet and so on. This is all sensational use of figures.
Smokers do all those things too.
You a smoker by any chance??
Companys almost have themselves to blame here, many do nothing to discourage the numerous smoking breaks which many employees take yet there are not part of official shifts breaks/lunches
If a non-smoker took that many “fresh air” breaks in a day they’d likely get warnings for not doing their job
Double standards and ironic given the time lost to smokers in sick days, unofficial breaks etc
Spot on!!!!!! Where is Joe? He is gone for a smoke. We should all have these breaks or none at all. Why should smokers get special treatment.
Breaks every hour are important for vision and concentration. Whether you smoke or not you should take breaks.
Jeez, with the amount of duty, I would have thought smoking generated a tidy profit for the exchequer, even taking costs into account.
I won’t feel so patriotic when I light up, now :(
I cant believe tabacco is costing us that much it doesnt make sense that it legal to buy something that does nothing but kill you and yet its illegal to buy weed
When I think of the ‘cost’, I think on 2 levels; the first cost is the obvious net economic and social deficit. The other is watching my grandmother and contemporaries have several years of appalling poor quality of life because Ireland wouldn’t call the smelly Class A drug what is. I have little sympathy for modern smokers, who I would like to stop blocking 1 in 6 hospital beds ultimately with their ‘lifestyle choice’. So quit whining.
Most modern day smokers tend to be the ones who get hooked early in their teens. I don’t know the cig companies do it, but they have mastered the practice of enticing young men and women to become addicts while our government sits by and pretends to care with smoking bans, demonisation and high taxes.
With attitudes like this toward smokers, a few smoke breaks during the day is the least they deserve.
Some smokers aren’t looking for sympathy, some of us pay our own health insurance(at a higher cost, and rightly so) and our own critical illness cover and life assurance(at a higher cost, and rightly so) but whilst it’s popular to attack the smoker, people seem to forget the drinker…. alcohol abuse in this country is rampant, you’d need only try to be seen in A&E any given weekend…. what do you think alcohol abuse costs the state? and what of the ‘social deficit’ in those cases? Cigarettes don’t make some people beat their wives or child(ren) or attack strangers…. but you better believe alcohol is present in a lot of cases where these disgusting incidents occur.
As for additional breaks in the workplace for smokers, shouldn’t happen and employers shouldn’t tolerate it.
Patrick just wondering where you got the 1 in 6 ratio from, both of my parents are extremely sick and have been for some months and what I see everyday when I visit the hospital is a load of junkies and alcoholics taking up beds and clogging up A&E. Dont hear anyone complaining about how much they cost the tax payer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They dont work – they get the dole. They dont work – they get the medical card. They are mainly criminal and cost the taxpayers billions every year between what it costs to keep them fed, clothed and housed in our prisons. You want to have a go at a section of society, pick on those more deserving of it – the junkies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Where I previously worked it was not uncommon for workers to have an unofficial smoke break each hour, lasting anywhere up to 10 minutes. A cup of tea of coffee was also brought to the break aswell. This worked out at about 120 minutes over the space of a 12 hour shift. Yeah 3 hours.
I can recall getting reprimanded for going over my break time, or being late back from a break, but I didn’t smoke. I was late and it was nothing to do with anyone else. I said I didn’t smoke but that didn’t hold water.
The problem is that smoking was fine, if you smoked and needed one, no one said you couldn’t, and the rules were very lax if you smoked.
It’s not recent knowledge that smoking is bad for you, yet nothing is really trying to emiminate smoking, it’s just moved to the “beer garden” or the “smoke shed”. The problem still exists. And young people knowing the full risk of smoking, eh it might give you lung cancer, continue to smoke into their twenties and later, it’s still socially acceptable to smoke.
And here is the funny thing, every smoker would love to quit, or they have tried to quit at least once. Whether it because it’s an expensive habit, because they feel outcasted from their non smoking friends, because they can’t smoke in public buildings or is it because of health reasons.
Probably moreso because of health reasons, I’d say.
I’m a smoker and I dont want to quit!!!!! I really really enjoy it.
Just more demonising of smokers. If it costs €1m a day, then the ‘ ban on smoking in the workplace ‘ has been a disaster. Alternatively, you could restore the right for smokers to smoke in offices, factories etc, then they won’t feel a need for smoke breaks.
That would be an abuse of the right of their colleagues to work in a safe environment. The smoking ban will save us more in the long run by reducing illness caused by passive smoking and by acting as a disincentive to smoke. There should be no going back on the ban.
I’m a smoker and there’s no way I’d like to see the smoking ban overturned, if anything the smoking ban has helped me cut down dramatically…. I only go for one when I get my lunch hour or 15 min breaks with the rest of the staff, if there’s people out there taking the piss by taking extra breaks then it’s down to their employers to put the foot down.
Shortall also said that the health services would be spending a remarkable €23bn treating tobacco-related diseases in the coming decade.
€1.2bn of this cost is covered by the taxes levied by the State on cigarettes, but the rest must be covered from the public purse
—————————–
so is that 1.2bn cost recovered per year of or over the 10 years? My guess is, it’s per year not over the 10 years….
Therefore, 12bn will be recovered through taxes not the 1.2bn stated.
Yes, apologies – the ‘per year’ was accidentally left out of this sentence. The state makes €1.2bn pa in tobacco duties and taxes.
The other 12 billion they can recover from not having to pay us smokers the old age pension given that we are all going to die younger!!!!!!!! So that makes it a fair deal all around for everyone :O)
Give it another 10-15 years and if your a smoker it’ll be a big negative for any job interview.
Also expect health insurance to be through the roof for smokers v non-smokers (and rightly so)
Smokers should not have to pay anymore insurance than anybody else. They are doing nothing illegal. Why should they be targeted and not drinkers of alcohol?
I can’t remember the last time someone drove a car into a wall or slashed someone else’s face after smoking 10 Silk Cut during the day.
No expecting about it Barry, it’s already here…. I pay double what my brother pays for life assurance and serious illness cover.
Then if thats the case so should alcoholics!
Yet you have no trouble paying for cigarettes.
In a more general sense, businesses should be allowed to actively discriminate against people with unhealthy “lifestyle choices”: smokers, heavy drinkers and those overweight (I mean those with more than a little bit of pudge). Simply put, these people are more likely to lose days due to illness, because of their “lifestyle choice”. It’s obvious that the employer is investing a lot in the employee, and is entitled to expect a reasonable return on the wages he is paying out. If the staff are taking too many smoking breaks, or taking too many sick days, then that’s a major cause for concern to the business.
However I think that employers should take more steps to ensure that their staff are healthy, namely paying for local gym membership as part of their contract. If they’re not doing physical work as part of their I know of a few of large businesses in Dublin that had (I think one or two went into liquidation) that had a swimming pool on site. This was so that they could make sure that their staff were fit and healthy, and wouldn’t take too much sick leave.
When it comes down to it, there needs to be a greater emphasis on personal responsibility in this country, in terms of diet and lifestyle. I’ve only tackled one dimension of this problem: the cost to businesses. As mentioned in the article, there is the ticking time bomb of healthcare costs in the future. This does not only apply to the usual suspects – namely drug takers, but to everyone who drinks too much or smokes too much. Those who buy counterfeit cigarettes can look forward to an even greater amount of illnesses in the future (as shown in a BBC Panorama documentary last year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00zftc4/Panorama_Smoking_and_the_Bandits/). In those cases, there is absolutely no regulation as to what is put into them, and there are all to often unsafe levels toxins in them, and no VAT is gained to even partially offset this.
Simply put, a lot of people (far from everyone) here need a wakeup call. If one could be denied employment, or health insurance, for smoking, overdrinking and overeating, how many would continue these unhealthy habits?
“If one could be denied employment, or health insurance, for smoking, overdrinking and overeating, how many would continue these unhealthy habits?”
Start your own business! You can smoke as much as you like. And again it’s good for the economy too
yeah róisín, we are in this mess because of the unemployed, the public service, the smokers, the drinkers, the immigrants working social welfare scams etc. Nothing to do with your willingness to bail out banking gamblers and running scare tactics. Oh we have to pay them, we would have no money in our atms if we didn’t pay them! simple fact is that if we dumped the bank debt today we could borrow on the open market tomorrow. most smokers are poor. Yeah róisín, blame your very labour supporting constitents for the mess you are willing to perpetuate.
Sorry Stephen, smokers cost health insurance companies more so of course the premiums should be higher. Drinking is a separate issue and irrelevant.
I dont get how you can say that drinking is a seperate issue and irrelevent. The article is about how much smokers cost the taxpayer and what we are saying is that those people in our society who are alcoholics also cost the taxpayer a shit load of money aswell. Smokers dont ring in sick on a Monday morning because they’d smoked 20 cigarrettes the day before, but had they drank 20 pints the day before chances are they are going to make that call to work! But I’m right there with you on us having to pay more health insurance.
Separate issue but in no way, shape or form is it irrelevant.
Irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Next they’ll be stapling tar-filled arteries to packets of fags..
lol
These days I only smoke when socialising in a pub. As far as smoking in the workplace was concerned I always that whatever it was I had to do was done.
This is simply a blatant attack on smokers, paving the way for the government to hit them hard in the budget. No doubt the increased tax take will be passed on to businesses to cushion the loss of €1m a day?
Fergal
According to the ban on smoking in the workplace will save us more in the long-term from illnesses caused by passive smoking. I agree. The Minister most probably knows this too. Yet she depicts smokes break as a cost. Instead, as you have rightly pointed out, these smokes breaks as a consequence of the ban will in the long run save money.
Like I said earlier, demonisation of smokers.
That’s a fair point. However, smoke breaks were a feature of workplaces even before the ban.
Correction 120 minutes should be 2 hours.
But how much tax does it bring in?
Read the article maybe.
have your say