he was once a kgb agent, bu turned into a local critic o russia when he was poisoned an london and made headline around the world a lethal toxin in a cup of tea it was a dirty bomb why was he killed to unravel the mystery, we follow the tail of a darke conspiracy are you threatened for your life we will meet and confront the prime suspect. did you put - in the teens and now, is the dange coming closer one man said shoe temp. an attack on the expert helping us with the story. people say this is neve going to happen here i know it can happen, here because it happened to m husband. hello, and welcome to dateline former russian agent alexander was a vocal critic of th russian government, but in his world access to informatio could make you a very rich man or a dead one. his murder set off a international investigation to discover who wanted hi silenced here s richard engel with sp games. a former russian agent, poisoned a multi millionaire found dead in
they were probably just pawn in a much bigger game. you think that any of the do you want that substance was you think that they knew tha they were giving him polonium? why wouldn t they have know their handling because you don t want them to know? but they could ve done better job of not spreading it over the case. if they knew, they also might see no there s no way i m going to do that i don t want to handle this radio active - i m not going to kill mysel in the process to get closer to the trut about who killed litvinenko, w had to talk to the suspect themselves andrei lugovoi and dmitr kovtun in kovtun s case, it was a easy a few weeks after litvinenko died of polonium poisoning kovtun was hospitalized an lost all his here. he hasn t been seen publicly since 2012 that left lugovoi. when we got here, he didn want to speak to us. but on the second day of our trip, he called and said he wa ready to talk.
as for his last meeting wit litvinenko at the pine bar lugovoi says there is no way h bought polonium on that trip because his wife and childre were with him. a persons we can spot is hi family and i m a rational man even if i had taken part in an operation, even if i had known what was in a container, would i take my family along i m a rational man i couldn t do it not only did he continue to maintain his innocence, he offered his own theory about who poisoned the teeth could someone have put something in there without you noticing no. why don t you think th polonium may have been put there into the cup after our meeting, the next day. or by a guy from mi6 he brings the polonium and pours it into the cup. that s agatha christie stuff mi6 is british intelligence lugovoi says perhaps the brits
october, 2006, the month befor litvinenko was poisoned, h began receiving frightenin emails the final message arrived on the very day of his last meeting with litvinenko. and what did that message? look, there are people read to kill you. the emails amounted to a hi list the next name up - alexander as in, litvinenko scaramella says that s why h met with litvinenko in london. to tell him about the hit list to warn him. but he says litvinenko didn buy it he said, mario, don t car about that - he says it s b. s.? i think it s just a provocation. but please check on. but after what happened t litvinenko, scaramella says he takes the hit list seriously are you frightened for you life well do you have anothe question [laughs] scotland yard questione scaramella and eventuall cleared him. why? because if you re looking fo it, polonium is traceable. using specialized equipment, investigators were able to track it in people and i places once polonium 210 had bee
it s a horrible death it s a gruesome death. he lived longer than any man normally would under those circumstances. and he lived just long enough, within 12 hours long enough, for them to finally determin that it was polonium versu something else why if he had died 12 hours earlier would it had made an difference because they wouldn t hav found out. they would ve marked the death certificate, as death unknown. he would ve been put in th ground it would ve been just mystery. unknown assailants turn a page. move on. it s a key of this murder polonium 210 was discovered. and now we exactly know what sasha was killed by. it s an almost perfec murder weapon. polonium has no smell, littl taste, and without specialized