Since 2006, when Alexander Litvinenko died of polonium poisoning, the case has been treated as murder.
And not just any old murder but one commissioned by my friend Vlad, who, if Peter Hitchens is to be believed, represents the world’s last bulwark of conservative, Christian values.
Conversely, anyone who denies that Vlad is any such thing can only do so out of malignant Russophobia, and that goes for some Russians as well.
After all, as Putin’s press secretary Peskov explained recently, Putin is Russia and Russia is Putin. Hence anyone casting aspersion on Vlad has to hate Russia. Unassailable logic, as far as I am concerned.
The polonium that killed Litvinenko is believed to have been administered by two of Vlad’s KGB colleagues who were having tea with Litvinenko at a London hotel.
Hours after the London Tea Party, the two gentlemen remembered they had to attend to some urgent business in Russia and left for Moscow in a huff. Since then they have maintained Trappist-like silence on the matter, flatly refusing to testify either by video link or especially in person.
In its turn, Vlad’s government turned down every British request for extradition, no matter how politely phrased.
Just in case, the key suspect Andrei Lugovoi was hastily elected into Russia’s parliament, the Duma.
It has to be said mournfully that some Russophobes suggest with their characteristic malice that providing parliamentary immunity for criminals is the Duma’s main, not to say sole, function. They point out that its legislative activity boils down to rubber-stamping Putin’s diktats.
All I can reply to those naysayers is a resounding ‘so what?’. Putin is Russia, is he not? And isn’t it the job of Russia’s parliament to do what Russia wants? Of course it is. That’s what democracy is all about.
Because the key suspects have been unavailable for questioning, the inquiry into the death of Litvinenko has proceeded in stops and starts, with nothing much to establish beyond the obvious fact that he was poisoned with polonium-210, which experts maintain can only be obtained in such quantities from a government installation.
All this changed dramatically the other day. Dmitri Kovtun, the other suspect, has called a press conference in Moscow. There he explained what happened to his unfortunate ex-colleague, shedding blinding light on the case.
Reading his revelations I felt like an intellectually challenged Scotland Yard inspector put to shame by Sherlock Holmes’s brilliance. Why didn’t I think of that, I moaned, tearing what’s left of my hair out.
Like so many discoveries of genius, Mr Kovtun’s version of the incident is deceptively simple, self-evident even. But detecting self-evident explanations that escape others is what genius is, isn’t it?
I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. Litvinenko’s death, revealed Mr Kovtun, was suicide. It may have been deliberate or accidental, but suicide none the less.
Either possibility makes sense, if we discount as a venomous lie any suggestion that a man of Putin’s angelic character could have ordered such a heinous act.
Mr Kovtun was marginally more in favour of the accident hypothesis, and he made a believer out of me.
Apparently, Litvinenko always carried large amounts of polonium on his person, constantly coming into contact with the poisonous substance. It’s also possible that he habitually put some of the isotope into his tea, preferring it to such orthodox additives as milk, sugar or lemon.
Can’t you just see it? “Gizza cuppa Rosie, dahlin,” Litvinenko would say to his wife Marina (he had lived in London long enough to pick up the patois). “Milk and sugar, love?” Marina would enquire. “Nah, you dozy cow,” Litvinenko would retort. “Giz some polonium, jahmean?”
A perfectly realistic situation, if you ask me. Yet Mr Kovtun generously offered an alternative version. It’s also possible, he opined, that Litvinenko ingested polonium from ambient air, and we all know how polluted London is.
He didn’t explain why Litvinenko was, and so far remains, the sole victim of the incipient pandemic of polonium poisoning, but then someone has to lead the way. A stroke of bad luck, that’s all.
Mr Kovtun didn’t enlarge on the possibility of deliberate suicide, which is unfortunate because I for one can see a clear motive, especially during this paschal season.
Litvinenko killed himself for the same reason Judas did: repentance. Like the Gospel villain, he had betrayed his God and benefactor, and the unbearable shame of that deed drove him over the edge.
After all, Litvinenko had already published one book libelling Putin (Blowing Up Russia). There he showed that Putin had some Russian blocks of flats blown up as a pretext for starting another Chechen war.
Rumour has it that in his next volume Litvinenko was planning to document Vlad’s personal links with organised crime, ignoring the real, utterly plausible explanations for Vlad’s $40-billion wealth (they escape me for the moment, but I’ll get back to you).
Not only that, but Litvinenko is said to have found documentary evidence for the rumours making the rounds in Russia about the reason for Vlad’s rather sluggish career path in the KGB (I’ll spare you the naughty details).
At some point, Litvinenko must have realised the abysmal depth of his moral fall. Unable to live with his vile deeds, he passed the death sentence on himself and executed it with polonium.
Admittedly, this version of events leaves a few questions unanswered. Such as, where exactly did Litvinenko get polonium? Last time I looked, it wasn’t sold OTC at London pharmacies or DIY shops.
Another question is, why did he choose such an agonising way of killing himself? A gun is much easier to find in London than a radioactive isotope, and wouldn’t it have been easier just to point and shoot?
Still, it’s not Mr Kovtun’s job to provide all the answers. That’s what we have police for. His job was to utter the magic word ‘suicide’.
Suddenly everything clicked into place, leaving but a few i’s to dot and t’s to cross. After all, our investigators have to do something to earn their keep.
Now I wonder if Mr Kovtun would still put forth the suicide version if Litvinenko had been shot in the back a few times? Probably. We all know that truth, especially Putin’s truth, can be stranger than fiction.