Here are photographs of names that keep coming up in the investigation of Alexander Litvinenko's murder, or victims of previous poisonings and suspicious deaths. To read the biographies of these individuals, click on their names.
Boris Berezovsky Born-Moscow 1946, now living in London. He is known as one of Russia’s first billionaires. In 1966, a Forbes magazine article entitled,
Godfather of the Kremlin? portrayed Berezovsky as a mafia boss who had his rivals murdered. He has strongly criticized the current Russian administration. He moved to the UK in 2001, where he was granted political asylum. In 2003 he legally changed his name to Platon Elenin. In recent years he has gone into business with Neil Bush, younger brother to US President George W. Bush. He was a close friend of Alexander Litvinenko.
Yegor Gaidar Born-1956, presently living in Moscow. He was Russia’s Prime Minister (1992) under President Boris Yeltsin. After leaving government in 1994, he became a founding member of the Democratic Choice of Russia party. It later merged into the Union of Rights Forces. In 2003, Gaidar retired from public political activities, and began concentrating on economics. On November 28, 2006, Gaidar was found unconscious in Ireland, where he had been presenting his new book,
Lasting time. Russia in the World. In it he criticized the economic policies of Putin’s administration. There have been suspicions of poisoning.
Alex Goldfarb Born-Romania 1947 Goldfarb is the Executive Director of the International Foundation for Civil Liberties-New York City, a non-profit and political action group, founded by former Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky in 2000. According to the website, the mission is
to provide financial, legal, informational and logistical resources to secure human rights and civil liberties in Russia. Among its projects include donations to the Andrei Sakharov Foundation. Goldfarb helped Alexander Litvinenko escape to the UK.
Oleg Kalugin Born-1934 Leningrad. He was formerly a KGB agent operating out of the Soviet embassy in Washington. He was promoted to General in 1974 and returned to the KGB headquarters to become head of foreign counterintelligence or K branch of the First Chief Directorate. As the Soviet Union underwent changes under Mikhail Gorbechev, he became more vocal and public in his criticism of the KGB, denouncing Soviet Security Forces as “Stalinistic”. He wrote a book about Cold War espionage entitled
The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West. With the return to power of elements of the KGB, most notably Vladimir Putin, Kalugin was accused of treason. In 2002 he was put on trial, in absentia, in Moscow, and found guilty of spying for the West. He was sentenced to fourteen years in jail, but the United States has refused to extradite him. Kalugin currently works for CI Centre, a counterintelligence consulting and training firm in the Washington, DC area.
Nikolai Khokhlov Born-1922, formerly a KGB officer who defected to the US in 1953. He fought behind enemy lines during WWII, disguised as a Nazi officer. He played a part in the assignation of Wilhelm Kube. He was later sent by the KGB to supervise two other men whose task it was to kill George Okolovich, the chairman of National Alliance of Russian Soldiers. Khokhlov went to Okolovich’s flat in Frankfurt and told him: “George Sergeevich, I have come to you from Moscow. The Central Committee of the Community Party of the Soviet Union has ordered your assassination. The murder is entrusted to my group… I can’t let this murder happen.” In Frankfurt, in 1957, he was treated for radioactive thallium poisoning, a failed attempt to assassinate him by the Thirteenth KGB Department. Today, he lives in San Bernardino, CA.
Dmitri Kovtun A Russian businessman, he has been identified as both, a target for the assassin who killed Alexander Litvinenko, and also as a possible suspect. Prosecutors in Hamburg are investigating him for allegedly illegally handling the radioactive polonium-210, which they believe was smuggled from Russia through Germany into Britain. He did meet with Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel on November 1, 2006. On December 11 it emerged that radioactive traces were found in the passenger seat of a BMW car that Kovtun rode in, on a document that he brought to Hamburg immigration authorities, and at the home of Kovtun's ex-mother-in-law outside Hamburg. Kovtun denies any part in Litvinenko's poisoning. He is reportedly being treated in Moscow for radiation poisoning at a clinic run by the Federal Medico-Biological Agency of Russia, which is sealed off.
Alexander Litvinenko Born 1962, Voronezh Russia, was a lieutenant-colonel in the FSB (Russia’s Security Service) and later a Russian dissident and writer, who was murdered in London by becoming a victim of lethal polonium-210 radiation poisoning. After working for the KGB and its successor, the FSB, Litvinenko publicly accused his superiors of ordering the assassination of Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky. He alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before the 9/11 attacks. He wrote
Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he said that it was FSB agents and not Chechen rebels who carried out the apartment block bombings. He was arrested, released then fled to the UK, where he was granted political asylum and citizenship. Litvinenko is thought to have been close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead last month in Moscow, and said recently that he was investigating her murder. Litvinenko died November 21, 2006.
Georgi Markov Born 1929-Knyazhero, Russia, defected from Bulgaria in 1969. He worked as a broadcaster and journalist for the BBC World Service, Radio Free Europe and the German Deutsche Welle. He criticized the Bulgarian communist regime many times on radio and it is speculated that as a result of this, the Bulgarian government decided to dispose of him, requesting KGB assistance to do so. Agents of the Bulgarian secret police assisted by the KGB succeeded on their third assassination attempt, when Markov was jabbed in the thigh by a man holding an umbrella (aka the Umbrella Murder). He died three days later (1978). At the post mortem, forensic pathologists discovered a spherical metal pellet the size of a pin-head embedded in Markov's calf. The pellet measured 1.52 mm in diameter and was composed of 90% platinum and 10% iridium. It had two holes with diameters of 0.35mm drilled through it, producing an X-shaped cavity. Further examination by experts indicated that the pellet contained traces of ricin toxin.
Anna Politkovskaya Born Anna Mazepa 1958, New York City to Soviet Ukrainian parents, both of whom served as diplomats to the United Nations. She grew up in Moscow, graduating from Moscow State University, Journalism Dept. Politkovskaya made a name for herself reporting from Chechnya for Russia’s liberal newspaper, Novya Gazeta. She was also a human rights activist, well known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and the Putin administration. She was murdered, execution style, in the elevator of her apartment building October 7, 2006.
Vladimir Satsyuk Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned by a massive dose of dioxin or 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD), the most toxic form of dioxin, at the home of Satsyuk (First Deputy of Ukraine Security Forces SBU) on September 5, 2004. Others present included: David Zhvaniya (national deputy of the opposition fraction) and Igor Smeshko (Chief of Ukraine SBU). The menu included at least one creamy dairy product -- a dish of fermented mare's milk called "koumiss." It also included sushi, crayfish, rye bread, watermelon, sweet cakes, wine, cognac, and home-distilled vodka. Following the incident, Satsyuk was fired from the SBU and kicked out from the Verkhovna Rada (national parliament), striping him of his parliamentary status and immunity.
Mario Scaramella Born 1970 Naples, Italy, an Italian lawyer, academic and security consultant. He met with Alexander Litvinenko, on November 1, 2006 at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly Circus and was himself diagnosed with the dangerous radioactive substance in his blood. He states that he was recruited several years ago by the CIA to trace relationships between South American narco-traffickers and Russian spy agencies. He is now under investigation for arms trafficking. The Italians have a term for people like Scaramella that has no exact equivalent in English:
millantatore di credito—someone who claims to know a lot more and to have done a lot more than he really does.
Igor Smeshko Previously a military attaché in D.C. in the early 1990’s when Ukraine first became independent, told then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, “…that when Ukraine became free of Russia he wanted to show his friendship for the United States," and that helping provide information on Iraq would give him that opportunity. Subsequently, Chairman of Committee on Military and Technical Cooperation Export Control Policy at Council on National Security and Defense (CNSD). He was promoted to Chairman of Security Service of Ukraine, September 4, 2003. Smeshko was present when Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned by a massive dose of dioxin or 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD), at the home of Vladimir Satsyuk (First Deputy of Ukraine Security Forces SBU) on September 5, 2004.
Glenmore Trenear-Harvey He pursued a career in marketing and advertising, first with General Foods in the United Kingdom then, in the United States, with the Maxwell House division of General Foods Corporation; the Ogilvy & Mather in London, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and director of O&M offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Indonesia; the Unilever-owned agency - SSC&B/Lintas in London. He is well know in the intelligence community and regularly provides comment for all mainstream media outlets on the subject, having spent 40 years in British security. He co-founded an agency in 1977, called Trenear-Harvey Bird & Watson.
Mikhail Trepashkin Born 1957, a Moscow attorney and former FSB officer, he was invited by MP Sergei Kovalev to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings in September 1999, the atrocities that provoked the Second Chechen War and skyrocketed Vladimir Putin to presidency. While preparing for the trial Trepashkin uncovered a trail of a mysterious suspect whose description had disappeared from the files. To his amazement, the man turned out to be one of his former FSB colleagues. He also found a witness who testified that evidence was doctored to lead the investigation away from incriminating the FSB. But Trepashkin never managed to air his findings in court. On October 22, 2003, just a week before the hearings, a gun was allegedly planted into his car, and he ended up behind bars. The gun charge was thrown out by a Moscow appeals court, but Trepashkin was convicted by a closed military court to four years for "disclosing official secrets".
Viktor Yushchenko Born 1954,Ukrain, As a central banker, Yushchenko played an important part in the creation of Ukraine’s's national currency, the hrvvnia, and the establishment of a modern regulating system for commercial banking. In December 1999, Yushchenko was nominated to be the prime minister by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. He was elected President of Ukrain in the November 2004 election. As a candidate, he represented the Ukranian Opposition Party. The public protests prompted by election fraud played a major role in the election; and the term Orange Revolution, of which Yushchenko is considered a leader, is interchangeably applied to the protests or the election itself. On September 4, 2004 he was poisoned with dioxin or 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD), at a meeting with Igor Smeshko at Vladimir Satsyuk’s cottage.
Akhmed Zakayev Born 1956, he was arrested in Britain (2002) on a Russian extradition warrant accusing him of armed rebellion, murder and kidnapping. In the wake of Moscow theatre crisis in October, when more than 120 hostages died from the effects of the narcotic gas, Zakayev was arrested, accused of involvement with Chechen rebels who took more than 800 people hostage in Moscow. On November 22, 2002 it was announced that he had been granted political asylum in the UK. Previously, Zakayev was involved in negotiations with Russian representatives before and after the September 1999 Russian offensive, the Second Chechen War. While living in London, Zakayev organized the World Chechen Congress.
Andrei Lugovoi a former Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) operative and millionaire who met with Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill (1 November). He had visited London at least three times in the month before Litvinenko's death and met with the victim four times. In 1987 Lugovoi joined the KGB's 9th directorate which provided security for top state officials. He was a platoon commander for five years and then served as a commander in the Kremlin regiment's training company. In 1991 he was transferred to the personal security unit until his resignation at the end of 1996. During his time in the KGB he provided security for Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, the head of the presidential administration Sergey Filatov and Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev. Lugovoi went on to work in the private security business. For several years he was head of security at the private television company ORT, then owned by Boris Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili. In 2001 Lugovoi was arrested and charged with organizing the escape of Nikolai Glushkov, a former deputy director-general of Aeroflot arrested in 2000 on fraud charges. Lugovoi's company Pershin is involved in private security, soft drinks and wine, and is said to be worth £100 million.
Dmitri Kovtun a Russian businessman, business partner with Andrei Lugovoy, and ex-KGB agent, met Alexander Litvinenko several times in London, the last time hours before Litvinenko fell ill. Kovtun graduated from military school in 1985, before graduating in 1986 with Andrei Lugovoy, from the prestigious army college, the Moscow Command School. Lugovoy recalled that the two of them had grown up in the same apartment block from the age of 12, while their fathers served in the Soviet Ministry of Defence. Kovtun spent the rest of the 1980s serving in Czechoslovakia and then Germany. Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, he remained in Germany, living there for a total of 12 years. He married a German national, although they are now separated. He retains a German residence permit, although he no longer conducts any business in Germany. He now works in consulting, helping Western companies to access Russian markets. It was for this reason, he explained, that he was interested in meeting Litvinenko, who had “serious contacts with serious English companies” interested in operating in Russia. Kovtun confirmed that he had first been introduced to Litvinenko by Lugovoy on 16 October.
Vyacheslav Sokolenko, another business partner of Andrei Lugovoy and Dimitri Kovtun. Sokolenko works for Devyatyy Val (Ninth Wave), a group of private security firms based in Moscow. Dmitri Kovtun also works for Devyatyy Val, and with Sokolenko, run the company.
