Question: Could you please comment on the open part of the public investigation of the Alexander Litvinenko case, which will end in Britain on July 31, and Dmitry Kovtun’s refusal to testify via video link from Russia?

Alexander Bikantov: In 2014, the British judiciary suspended a coroner's inquest into Litvinenko’s death. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has the status of an interested party in this inquest and rendered active assistance to the inquest until July 2014, when the start of the so-called “public inquiry” was announced. In August 2014, the Investigative Committee had to refuse to take part in “the public inquiry” because contrary to its title, this inquiry is not transparent, either to the Russian side or to the public. We had serious apprehensions of its possible politicisation, and they were fully justified. The hearings on the open part of “the public inquiry,” held from January to March of this year, and resumed last week, abounded in references to the secrecy of the case, all kinds of insinuations and open bias as regards witnesses who testified contrary to the general line of the prosecution.

 Dmitry Kovtun cannot testify in British court via a video link because such interrogation would contradict the current Russian-British international agreements on legal assistance and police cooperation as well as Russian criminal procedural law. Russia’s authorised departments informed the British side about this in advance. Having ignored this argument, the British side still started the video link and then rushed to accuse the relevant Russian bodies of a failure to relieve Kovtun of his obligation of confidentiality to a Russian investigation for this video link, although this video conference was not supposed to be held at all.  This is not the first time that a British “public inquiry” ignores standards of international law and Russian legislation. It transpired during hearings that British investigators repeatedly contacted potential witnesses in Russia, through various means of communication, without giving any advance notice to the Russian authorities. By so doing they extended foreign enforcement jurisdiction to Russia’s territory without its consent, violated its sovereignty and the fundamental international principle of non-interference in domestic affairs. Incidentally, Britain’s legal standards are the same: it is not allowed to establish direct contacts via communication channels with witnesses on its territory without prior notice of the British law-enforcement agencies.

Moreover, the presiding judge in the inquiry recently decided to publish confidential correspondence with the lawyers representing the Russian Investigative Committee in the suspended coronary’s inquest.

Such a selective approach of those who organised “the public inquiry” and their stubborn reluctance to accept, under all kinds of excuses, the justification of the Russian competent agencies in a professional manner, show once again that the British side is not going to give up its line on politicising the case and interpreting at will the circumstances of Litvinenko’s death. Further hearings with unknown participants will be held behind closed doors, with the obvious purpose of receiving results required by the prosecution.

 

 

July 31, 2015