Next steps for Litvinenko’s widow

Diplomatic fall-out from coroner’s report will be “significant” Alexander Litvinenko’s murderers are unlikely ever to face justice, although the diplomatic fall-out from Sir Robert Owen’s coroner’s report will be “significant”, according to a leading lawyer writing in this week’s NLJ.

Russian dissident and ex-KGB whistleblower Alexander Litvinenko succumbed to a highly toxic radioactive isotope in a London hospital nine years ago. Sir Robert’s report, published last month, formally accused Vladimir Putin of personally authorising Litvinenko’s death, and Russian citizens Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun of executing the terrible deed with a poisoned teapot in a London hotel in 2006. The campaign for justice being waged by Litvinenko’s widow and son may continue, writes Louis Flannery, head of international arbitration at Stephenson Harwood, in this week’s NLJ, although he questions what can actually be done.

The home secretary has said she will place asset freezes against Lugovoy and Kovtun, and apply for their extradition. Interpol and European Arrest Warrants against them are in place. However, both men are in Russia. They could be tried in absentia, Flannery suggests, but their convictions would secure little apart from recognition of their guilt. Flannery notes that Putin enjoys sovereign immunity so that neither a criminal trial nor even a civil suit against him would be possible.

One avenue of justice may remain for Mrs Litivinenko and her son. Flannery writes: “In her first year as a widow, she took Russia to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for violating her husband’s right to life. “Those proceedings were suspended pending the inquest-turned-inquiry. It is believed that the publication of the report will almost certainly lead to her reactivating them.”

Even if successful, of course, “Russia does not exactly have a record of being a happy payer of judgment debts. There is also the additional problem of the uncertainty in terms of damages. But in principle, there is nothing to stop that process continuing now, and one would expect the ECtHR judges to be sympathetic to the claimants.” (see: Murder most foul)