Litvinenko widow allowed home after house decontaminated
05/11/2008 18:09 LONDON, November 5 (RIA Novosti) - The widow of the late Russian intelligence defector Alexander Litvinenko has had the keys to her north London house returned to her after work was carried out to decontaminate it.
Alexander Litvinenko died of radioactive poisoning on November 23, 2006, three weeks after suddenly falling ill. British investigators accused Russian agent-turned-businessman Andrei Lugovoi over the murder, and demanded his extradition, sparking a major diplomatic row with Moscow.
The Litvinenkos' home in Muswell Hill, north London, was apparently contaminated when the former agent returned there the night he was poisoned.
"The family home of the late Alexander Litvinenko, who died from Polonium-210 poisoning in November 2006, has now been deemed safe for habitation and the keys have been returned to Mrs Litvinenko," said Haringey councillor Nilgun Canver.
Litvinenko's widow Marina was forced to move from the house, where she had lived for three years, after dangerous radiation levels were detected.
"Much of the contamination found in earlier surveys has naturally decayed in the intervening time, so only minimal further remediation work has been necessary," added Canver.
It is still unclear whether Marina and her 13-year-old son Anatoly will return to live in the house.
Large traces of radioactive polonium-210 were found in Litvinenko's body, but British authorities have not yet made public any official document specifying the exact cause of his death or the results of the autopsy.
Russia has long been demanding from the U.K. additional evidence to back up its accusation of Lugovoi. However, the newly-appointed British ambassador to Russia, Anne Pringle, said recently that "London has already submitted sufficient evidence to extradite him to Britain."
Litvinenko was fired from the FSB (formerly the KGB) following a 1998 press conference in which he and a number of other FSB officers alleged that they had been ordered to murder and kidnap a number of high-profile figures.
He received British citizenship in 2006 and published two books in the U.K. alleging the involvement of the Russian security services in a series of apartment bombings in Russia in 1999.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
