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Marina Litvinenko, the widow of Alexander V. Litvinenko, left a preliminary hearing in London on Thursday.
The slow-moving effort to hold an inquest into the poisoning death of a Russian whistle-blower, Alexander V. Litvinenko, inched forward on Thursday in London with a preliminary hearing at which lawyers said the British authorities were seeking to suppress evidence relating to possible contacts between him and the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.
Mr. Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. officer and critic of the Russian authorities who had won asylum and citizenship in Britain, died in November 2006 after ingesting a rare radioactive isotope, polonium 210, from a teapot at a meeting with Russian contacts at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square in London.
The killing, coinciding with other strains between London and Moscow, chilled relations between Britain and Russia, leading to tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats reminiscent of the cold war. Russia's refusal to hand over Mr. Litvinenko's accused killer has since stymied efforts to restore normal ties.
British prosecutors are seeking the extradition of Andrei K. Lugovoi, another former K.G.B. officer who was present at the meeting at the Millennium Hotel, to face murder charges. Mr. Lugovoi, who is now a member of the Russian Parliament, has denied the accusations and has declined to leave Russia. Russian authorities say their Constitution forbids extradition of their own citizens.
Mr. Litvinenko's critics had long asserted that he maintained ties with British intelligence services, but those contacts — if they took place — remain murky.
At the hearing on Thursday, Sir Robert Owen, a senior judge appointed to oversee the oft-delayed inquest, said: "It has been almost six years since his death in November 2006. Such a delay is regrettable."
"There will be no further delay. It is manifestly in the interests of the interested persons, in particular his widow, Marina Litvinenko, and his son Anatoly Litvinenko, of the other interested persons and in the wider public interest that the inquest is brought to a conclusion with due expedition."
"It's my intention to commence the substantive hearings at the first practicable opportunity as early in 2013 as is consistent with the completion of the necessary preparatory steps" in November and December, he said, according to Britain's Press Association news agency.
One part of the evidence shown to relatives and other people involved in the case will be a report by Scotland Yard detectives on whether Mr. Litvinenko had contacts with MI6 before his death. He had become a British citizen only weeks before his poisoning.
Hugh Davies, a lawyer representing the inquiry, said the British government had requested that references to MI6 in the report be kept secret. While the contents of the police report are known to the coroner and members of the legal team conducting the inquiry, he said, they will not be disclosed to the other parties in the case.
"Claims have been made to the effect that Mr. Litvinenko had contact with the British intelligence service before his death. As part of its investigation, the Metropolitan Police Service made an inquiry into these claims," Mr. Davies said. But, while efforts were made to determine whether those details could be disclosed, details of any contacts had "been redacted from the report at the request of Her Majesty's Government."
"This redaction, of course, should not be taken as indicating one way or the other whether Mr. Litvinenko did indeed have any such contact," Mr. Davies said.
Ben Emmerson, a lawyer representing Mr. Litvinenko's widow, Marina, said she was "keen that the significance of all the evidence, including that which is redacted, is in one way or another fairly and independently evaluated and that as much as is possible should be made public, in the interests of ensuring not just a complete inquiry but a conclusion and deliberation which is internationally and nationally a credible one made on the circumstances of her husband's death and the reasons for it."
Mrs. Litvinenko wanted to know whether her husband's death was "a targeted assassination of a British citizen committed by agents of a foreign state in the sovereign territory of the United Kingdom," the lawyer said.
If this were proved to be the case, it would amount to "state-sponsored nuclear terrorism on the streets of London," he said.
Mrs. Litvinenko, whose husband accused Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian leader, of responsibility for his poisoning, told reporters that she believed "we will get justice in Britain. Any truth is very important for all of us, my friends, my family and the public."
"It was a British citizen killed here, a British soul," she said. "I'm not a politician, I'm a woman who lost her husband and I want to know what happened."
In Moscow, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich, told reporters that Russia expected the inquest in London Russia "to give an exhaustive picture of what happened and that it will shed light on all the facts that are needed to reveal the truth," according to Agence France-Presse.
He said Britain's chief suspect had proven himself innocent by taking a lie-detector test, an apparent reference to a test Mr. Lugovoi reportedly took for a television documentary in April.
"I think there should be no question here: it is accepted everywhere and it has been shown that this person took this step to prove once again his innocence," Mr. Lukashevich said..
The Litvinenko case was not the only issue if relations with Britain, he said. "This picture is not painted in two colors — black and white. It is multicolored and we have to pick out bright colors from it as well," Mr. Lukashevich said.
By ALAN COWELL 20 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/world/europe/britain-wants-any-litvinenko-spy-links-kept-quiet.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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