Rob Horgan
A FORMER Russian spy was fatally poisoned on the ‘direct orders’ of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the widow’s lawyer told a public inquiry yesterday.
Alexander Litvinenko died at a London hospital weeks before he was due to give evidence at a criminal trial in Spain in 2006.
Ben Emmerson QC told the hearing that Putin brought ‘nuclear terrorism to the streets’ of London in an act of ‘unspeakable barbarism’.
He claimed that Putin saw Litvinenko as such a traitor that Russian special forces used him for target practice.
