did you put any polonium in the tea? of course not. i was tested for polonium, and i tested positive. did i put polonium into myself? am i an idiot? am i crazy? reporter: but scotland yard detectives don t believe lugovoi s denials. in fact, they think he tried kill litvinenko more than once. that s because they found polonium on the table in a conference room where he and litvinenko had met two weeks before the pine bar encounter. was anything spilled on the table? richard, you are asking questions. i remember some things, i don t remember other things. i cannot answer these questions because these can be used against me in the court, which is done frequently. reporter: as for his last meeting with litvinenko at the pine bar, lugovoi says there s no way he brought polonium on that trip because his wife and children were with him.
by far the most dangerous things he could do. in addition to a possible motive, there was also the means. paul joil says the fact that polonium was used to kill litvinenko leaves little doubt as to who authorized the murder. so does that mean it had to be putin? it could have been someone else with access to come on. come on. you re not going to engage an act of nuclear terrorism in downtown london without the knowledge of the office of the president. today we begin the open hearings in the inquiry into the death of alexander litvinenko. in january 2015, a public inquiry opened in london. it was a victory for marina, who along with their attorneys fought an eight-year legal battle to make it happen. on the opening day, her attorney argued the evidence leads to one disturbing conclusion, which litvinenko himself reached before he died. mr. litvinenko came to the
awful realization that he had been the victim of a political assassination by agents of the russian state. an expert witness testified the polonium that killed litvinenko could only have come from russia. president putin s spokesman declined our request for an interview, and in march 2015, putin gave lugovoi a medal, the order of merit to the fatherland, second class, for his work in the douma. you think russia will ever come clean and this will be known? i believed one day we will know this. it will be very obvious for people to decide. in the years she s been looking for answers, other questions have multiplied, other deaths have been recorded. there was boris berezovsky, the russian oligarch litvinenko says he refused to assassinate, another prominent critic of putin. in 2013, he bad found dead in
this and have been promising this since yesterday. what we learned already and we just learned moments ago, the main line of inquiry here for the british government is that russia used this mysterious substance to poison the former russian spy who has moved here who has moved here to the u.k. yesterday, we heard british foreign secretary, boris johnson, saying there were striking similarities between this incident and an incident the case of a former russian agent turned kremlin putin critic back in 2006 who was poisoned with something called polonium 210. bill: if it turns out to be moscow, is the british government ready for some response? reporter: they ve had lots of
himself was poisoned with polonium 210. leader didn t shed tears but laughs off the notion that russian state was connected. he thinks russian agents would have done a better job. translator: i m surprised that the uk special services and court accuses russia that it was a bag of polonium and came to london and were just throwing it around. it doesn t make sense to a lot of people that russia didn t kill them. translator: for 100 years the russian special services have been using the kind of substances for killing people that you never will be able to recognize. why do we have to go into some kind of bar and put it in someone s tea cup? the state cannot be involved in that. litvinenko s friend who believes he was the target of a botched assassination agrees that in some ways litvinenko s