I was poisoned by Litvinenko's killer: How British analyst survived polonium hit in botched early attempt to kill Russian  

  • Tim Reilly could have been the target of Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun
  • He fell ill after a meeting and ended up in bed with vomiting and diarrhoea 
  • Only realised what could have happened after Alexander Litvinenko's death
  • Report into Litvinenko's death published last week blaming Vladimir Putin
  • See more news on Russian killings at www.dailymail.co.uk/russia

No one would have called it a routine meeting. The confidential get-together on the fourth floor of a Mayfair office block involved delicate negotiations with well-placed Russian ‘businessmen’. And the subject was a lucrative deal with the secretive state-owned Russian energy giant Gazprom.

Even so, British consultant Tim Reilly, 56, could not have known when he left the office on October 16, 2006, that he was very nearly a dead man. For his ‘colleagues’ were Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko and the two men who would eventually kill him with radioactive polonium-210.

By the time Reilly stepped out on to the streets of London he too was sick with radiation. Today, speaking for the first time about his terrifying brush with death, he reveals:

British consultant Tim Reilly met Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun for a meeting in London in 2006 and was then 'very ill'
Alexander Litvinenko, who was also at the meeting, died the following month after ingesting polonium

British consultant Tim Reilly (left) met Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun for a meeting in London in 2006 and was then 'very ill'. Alexander Litvinenko (right), who was also at the meeting, died the following month after ingesting polonium

  • He could also have been a target for assassins Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun.
  • He might have been saved by not accepting the killers’ offers of tea containing polonium-210. 
  • The Kremlin may well have used Russian criminals to carry out this and other murder plots. 

Last week, Sir Robert Owen published his report into Litvinenko’s death, blaming Vladimir Putin for ordering the assassination. He also concluded that the first attempt to kill Litvinenko was at Reilly’s offices.

Reilly, a specialist in the Russian energy market and a fluent Russian speaker, said: ‘After the meeting I was very ill indeed – diarrhoea, vomiting and terrible headaches. I was so ill I had to take the next day off. The headaches were worse than any of the severe migraines attacks I have ever suffered before.’

That same night, Litvinenko also complained to his wife Marina that he was feeling ill and retired to bed. But this attempt on his life had been botched. It was only after the successful assassination of Litvinenko the following month that Reilly realised he too had been poisoned by polonium-210 and had in fact had a very lucky escape.

He contacted the British security services, who responded immediately. ‘Scientists from Aldermaston [the Atomic Weapons Establishment] were called in and they tested everything – my office, my home, my car. And they tested me, of course. In the waiting room I found myself sitting next to a Mr Berezovsky, who I hadn’t met before but presumed was being tested as well.

‘They found I had definitely been contaminated, which led to further tests at a London hospital. The level of contamination warranted destruction of my clothing, some personal things – pens, mugs and so on.’ Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch and noted Putin opponent, was later found dead in mysterious circumstances.

During later meetings with detectives investigating the case, Reilly was told that he may have been a target as well. At the time he was an energy consultant employed by international security company Erinys, based in London. He had met Litvinenko in 2006 when they had arranged to work together on business deals.

It has been reported that this first assassination attempt by  Lugovoi (pictured) and Kovtun failed because neither Litvinenko nor Reilly drank the tea

It has been reported that this first assassination attempt by Lugovoi (pictured) and Kovtun failed because neither Litvinenko nor Reilly drank the tea

Later that year Litvinenko introduced Reilly to Lugovoi and Kovtun. Reilly recalls: ‘I was at a meeting on October 16 with Lugovoi, Kovtun and Litvinenko about possible deals in Russia. Lugovoi was working with Russian energy companies including Gazprom. Erinys was to provide commercial security services to the Russian oil and gas industry.’

It was an hour-long meeting at which Lugovoi did most of the talking while Kovtun remained silent. Reilly said the two spies had repeatedly encouraged him to drink tea.

The meeting took place in the company’s fourth-floor boardroom. It was reported that this first assassination attempt failed because neither Litvinenko nor Reilly drank the tea, or Lugovoi and Kovtun used a spray to administer the poison, which didn’t contain a strong enough dose. When it emerged the following month that Litvinenko had died after ingesting polonium laced with his tea in a second encounter with the killers, Reilly desperately tried to recall whether he shared any drinks with Lugovoi and Kovtun at the Mayfair meeting.

But he says: ‘I simply can’t remember what we drank.

‘Like all our meetings there was tea, coffee and water.

‘I had worked in Russia for many years on a number of security deals and spoke fluent Russian.

‘The Russians would have a thick file on me. It’s possible that Lugovoi and Kovtun thought, “We’ll whack him as well” or it may have been that I was just collateral damage.’

The latest report into Litvinenko's death includes this image of a teapot as well as a graph to show contamination levels

The latest report into Litvinenko's death includes this image of a teapot as well as a graph to show contamination levels

Reilly believes the findings of the inquiry into Litvinenko’s death were largely correct. But he argues the idea Lugovoi and Kovtun were being paid or working for one of Russia’s crime gangs should have been taken more seriously. He asks: ‘If the Russian state did send two agents to kill Litvinenko why did they choose two such incompetent assassins in Kovtun and Lugovoi who left trails of the poison all over London?’

The radiation they were spreading would have been enough to contaminate Reilly even if he did not take up the assassins’ offer of a seemingly innocent cup of tea.

He says that Russian criminal gangs and syndicates are often used as conduits and mechanisms through which overseas KGB operations can be carried out in foreign countries.

 

We need to hit $40billion Putin where it hurts... in his wallet 

By DAVID DAVIS

Vladimir Putin has made a killing. I am not referring to the vicious and sadistic destruction of Alexander Litvinenko’s life by intelligence agents under Putin’s command. I am speaking of the incredible wealth – probably in excess of $40billion – that Putin and his cronies have stolen from Russia since the KGB placed him as adviser to the mayor of St Petersburg in 1990.

Putin was one of the KGB active reserve officers placed in positions of political and economic influence throughout Russia’s post-Soviet economy. Many of these were to become the ‘siloviki’, men of force, who were to be the power in the land decades later.

Within two years of his arrival in St Petersburg, investigators accused Putin of misappropriating $93million of metals and recommended he be sacked. It did not even slow his ascent through the political ranks of St Petersburg, then Moscow, en route to being director of the FSB – the successor to the KGB – then prime minister, then president.

Throughout this time, Putin’s cronies became fabulously rich as a result of the astonishing rape of the Russian nation’s wealth. Few in the West understand quite what a kleptocratic monster the Russian state has become. The asset-stripping that took place after the Soviet Union’s collapse and enriched many oligarchs happened under the control of the KGB-installed siloviki. Putin is the leading member of the siloviki, and the main beneficiary of its actions.

Tomorrow night, the BBC will broadcast Panorama: Putin’s Secret Riches, which tells the story of his ascent to president with that reputed $40billion in his command. The President is pictured (above)

Tomorrow night, the BBC will broadcast Panorama: Putin’s Secret Riches, which tells the story of his ascent to president with that reputed $40billion in his command. The President is pictured (above)

Tomorrow night, the BBC will broadcast Panorama: Putin’s Secret Riches, which tells the story of his ascent to president with that reputed $40billion in his command.

This matters to Britain because it is the key to dealing with the monstrous behaviour of Putin’s Russia, assassinating people on the streets of London. It gives us a way to deal with a Russian leadership that appears beyond control.

This is important because the response of the British state has been wholly inadequate.

Putin will today be thinking all his calculations worked out. This most macho of leaders will be smirking at what he will view as a predictably weak response by Britain. Our reaction to having people murdered in our capital has been to levy irrelevant punishments against the two killers who were the pawns in the game, and shrug our shoulders about the head of Russian security services, Nikolai Patrushev, and the president who almost certainly authorised it.

The actions against Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun – freezing assets we cannot reach, and stopping them from travelling where they will not go – are futile. The killers have no reason to leave Russia, where they will be cosseted by the state. Lugovoi is a Russian MP and was given a medal for ‘services to the motherland’ by Putin only last year.

That we responded so weakly to the only ever judicial finding that a foreign government ordered the killing of a British citizen on UK soil is astonishing.

But Putin will have calculated the British response would be weak a couple of years ago when the Government tried to resist a judicial inquiry in favour of a simple inquest. It did so using an argument of ‘international considerations’, which actually meant ‘do not upset the Russians’.

The danger we now face is that Putin will believe he can get away with anything. We are not simply talking about him ordering the murder of anybody he dislikes. In the past few years Putin separated South Ossetia from Georgia, and is slowly absorbing it and Abkhazia into Russia. He has annexed Crimea and he has fomented a civil war in eastern Ukraine, shooting down a civil airliner in the process. The response of the West has been entirely incompetent.

The idea that he will pay more attention to us on who to bomb in Syria, or what to do in Ukraine, if we fail to respond is wrong. He will merely see us as weak and that will embolden him further. So what can we do? The most important action we can take is to hit Putin where it hurts – in his wallet.

Putin cannot admit to his wealth, of course. Even the Russian population would be horrified and he cares about ratings. So he could not complain about the attack.

The wealth is held by proxies, often concealed in layered offshore trusts and bank accounts. In the first six months of last year, more than $2 billion of Russian money was moved to the Bahamas, and there are many other tax havens that hide Russian funds, including some British overseas territories.

Along with the City of London, where the Russians also hide their wealth, these mean that Britain has more power to make things difficult for Putin than any country except the US.

The US Treasury claimed that Putin had a stake in Gunvor, an oil-trading company based in Switzerland, through his friend Gennady Timchemko. The US Treasury put Timchemko on a sanctions list, and he sold his share in Gunvor and ran back to Moscow. We should extend this tactic.

We should look at the assets of every friend of Putin. There are Russian billionaires in London whose fortunes are of dubious origin. It is time that they were subject to close inspection. We should identify every Russian associated with any of the killings the Russians have carried out over the years, freeze their assets and impose the most comprehensive travel ban possible. Given how we have supported our allies with terrorism, we should expect them to support us in dealing with state-sponsored terror such as this.

Neither should we confine ourselves to the Litvinenko killing. The Russian state is associated with a number of suspicious deaths abroad, as well as more than 100 murders of opponents at home. We and our European allies should join the Americans in having a ‘Magnitsky list’ – banning travel of a number of Russian officials.

Finally, when dealing with someone like Putin it’s always worth having a sanction in reserve. There have been calls to move the 2018 World Cup from Russia. David Cameron said we should not penalise Russia’s people. Perhaps not, but the profits and the plaudits will accrue to Putin and his cronies.

One more international misbehaviour, and it should go. 

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