In the murky world of Russian espionage, conspiracy theories are the commodities traded by figures like Andrei Lugovoy, the former KGB officer accused of murdering his colleague Alexander Litvinenko in London last year.

Today he made sensational revelations naming British intelligence, the exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky and for good measure the Russian mafia as the main suspects for Litvinenko’s murder.

The allegations may help to deflect efforts by the Crown Prosecution Service to have Mr Lugovoy extradited to London and charged with murder.

But he failed to explain how it was that he left a trail of polonium-210, the deadly radioactive isotope used to poison Litvinenko, on the British Airways aircraft he used to fly in and out of London, and the Millenium Hotel room, where he stayed in Mayfair.

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BACKGROUND

• Lies and the spies: I must have justice

• Shadowy ex-KGB major takes cover

• Of course the Russians did it. They’re the experts

• The Litvinenko File

• Litvinenko was told that he was marked for death

Related Links

• Russian secret service will not face questions

• Refusal to extradite would be within rights

• Film investigates the spy’s ‘quest for truth’

Nor did his rebuttal address the fact that on his death bed Litvinenko blamed President Putin for his murder.

Mr Lugovoy also asserted that Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) recruited Mr Berezovsky and Litvinenko as agents and tried to recruit him to provide compromising information about President Putin and his family.

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE MURDERED LITVINENKO

“I cannot get away from the thought that Litvinenko was an agent who had gone out of control and they got rid of him,” said Mr Lugovoy.

While any fan of James Bond knows that British agents travel the world bumping off enemies at will, in reality MI6 is a far more mundane organisation focused almost entirely on intelligence gathering.

Agents, known as “Joes” in the “Firm” (MI6), are often unstable characters capable of switching allegiances and causing trouble for their handlers.

It seems reasonable to imagine that Litvinenko had some form of contact with British intelligence. But once he fled Russia and settled in London his value as a source would diminish by the day.

To suggest that MI6 connived to acquire polonium-210, used it to poison Litvinenko and then accidentally spread it across central London infecting dozens of innocent people is ludicrous. If it was MI6, why did Litvinenko not say so as he lay dying in University College Hospital with nothing to lose?

Mr Lugovoy claimed he had evidence of British “control or connivance” in the murder, but failed to produce it.

THE MAFIA MURDERED LITVINENKO

There have always been suspicions that Litvinenko was murdered by the Russian mafia because a business deal went wrong. It is known that he was looking for work when he was killed and may have been in touch with disreputable figures. But no hard evidence has emerged to stand up this theory and Mr Lugovoy did not offer any today. It still does not explain the use of polonium-210, traced to Mr Lugovoy’s movements, nor Litvinenko’s death bed accusations.

BORIS BEREZOVSKY MURDERED LITVINENKO

“The third theory looks the most likely to me. I am talking about Boris Berezovsky, who is well known as an outstanding master of political intrigue,” said Mr Lugovoy.

This has all along been the Kremlin’s explanation for the Litvinenko murder. In essence, Mr Berezovsky is accused of killing his own protege to blacken the reputation of Mr Putin. Mr Lugovoy added a new twist to the theory, suggesting that Litvinenko was trying to blackmail Mr Berezovsky, who was granted asylum in Britain to the Kremlin’s fury.

While the Russian tycoon and former Kremlin insider is indeed a master of intrigue, murdering his own colleague with a radioactive poison stretches the imagination.

Again it fails to explain how polonium-210, a substance manufactured under tight supervision in Russia and other nuclear states, found its way to London where it was used as a poison.

Mr Lugovoy also alleges that Mr Berezovsky was working for British Intelligence. It is possible and even likely that the tycoon has ties to British Intelligence. But he certainly does not need the money and his information will always be treated with suspicion because of his open opposition to the Kremlin.

MI6 TRIED TO RECRUIT LUGOVOY

“The English, in essence, offered me to collect any compromising material on President Putin and his family,” said Mr Lugovoy.

This is the only allegation that is plausible. In the chaotic world of post-Soviet Russia Moscow was flooded with former Russian intelligence officers breaking into the private sector and often prepared to trade their knowledge for money or contracts.

Mr Lugovoy is a typical product of this generation. He worked in the former KGB in the elite directorate responsible for guarding the Kremlin leadership. He would have had access to many state secrets. He then worked for Mr Berezovsky, before being sent to jail, where it is assumed he was persuaded to work for his old masters at Lubyanka (the Russian intelligence headquarters in Moscow).

As the head of a private security company with contacts in and outside the Kremlin, he is precisely the sort of figure that British or other foreign intelligence services might want to recruit as an agent.

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