Triple agent! Poisoned Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was working for British AND Spanish intelligence, says wife

• Former KGB agent introduced to Spanish intelligence services by MI6
  
• Alexander Litvinenko advised on link between Russian Mafia and government
• Spy was poisoned after allegedly having tea with former KGB colleagues
• Family claim he may have been poisoned in bid to silence him or as warning
  

By Ryan Kisiel and Sam Greenhill

PUBLISHED: 08:10 EST, 13 December 2012 | UPDATED: 04:49 EST, 14 December 2012

Poisoned former KGB spy  Alexander Litvinenko was effectively a triple agent working for MI6 and the Spanish secret service, it was claimed yesterday.

He was on the payroll of MI6 and had a handler called ‘Martin’, a barrister for his widow Marina said.

The Spanish secret service was also bankrolling his espionage activities and both stipends were paid into a joint bank account he held with his wife, it was said.

Doomed: Litvinenko in hospital on November 20, 2006. He died three days later

A pre-inquest hearing yesterday was told that the Government has ‘established’ Moscow has a case to answer that Mr Litvinenko was assassinated in London.

Mr Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 while drinking tea at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair.

As he lay dying in hospital, ‘reluctant to tell police that he was an MI6 agent’, he handed detectives the mobile phone number of his MI6 handler ‘Martin’, the hearing conducted by High Court judge Sir Robert Owen was told.

The death of 43-year-old Mr Litvinenko,  a fugitive from the Putin regime, in November 2006 plunged Anglo-Russian diplomatic relations into deep freeze.

Determined: Marina Litvinenko, the widow of former spy Alexander, arrives at Camden Town Hall in London today

Former KGB agents Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, who met him at the Millennium Hotel, are prime suspects in the murder. Both deny involvement.

The Crown Prosecution Service wants to charge Lugovoy, but Russia refuses to extradite him.

Mr Litvinenko’s widow believes MI6 failed to protect her husband. Her QC, Ben Emmerson, told the hearing at Camden Town Hall in North London: ‘Mr Litvinenko had been for a number of years a regular and paid agent and employee of MI6 with a dedicated handler whose pseudonym was Martin.’

He said that, at the behest of MI6, Mr Litvinenko was also working for the Spanish security services, where his handler was called ‘Uri’.

Mr Emmerson said the inquest should consider whether MI6 failed in its duty to protect Mr Litvinenko against a ‘real and immediate risk to life’.

He suggested there was ‘an enhanced duty resting on the British Government to ensure his safety when tasking him with dangerous operations involving engagement with foreign agents’.

He said Mr Litvinenko was supplying the Spanish with information on organised crime and Russian mafia activity in Spain.

Mr Emmerson said: ‘It is Marina Litvinenko’s belief that the evidence will show that her husband’s death was a murder and that Andrei Lugovoy was the main perpetrator.’ The QC claimed Mr Litvinenko and Lugovoy were working together and had planned to travel to Spain to deliver information about links between the Russian mafia, the Kremlin and the country’s President Vladimir Putin.

‘He had a separate telephone for contacting Martin and by the time of his death he also had a separate direct phone for contacting Lugovoy,’ he said.

When Mr Litvinenko fell ill – but before he realised he was slowly dying from polonium – he phoned Lugovoy from his bed in University College Hospital to say that he could not make the trip.

Couple: Alexander Litvinenko and wife Marina in London on November 4, 2000

In a further twist, it was claimed by a lawyer acting for Russian dissident billionaire Boris Berezovsky that Lugovoy was actually double-crossing his spymasters at the Kremlin. Mr Litvinenko died three weeks after being poisoned by the radioactive isotope.

An inquiry set up after his death said secret Government documents, which included material submitted by Scotland Yard and intelligence agencies, showed that the Russian state did have a case to answer.

The extraordinary claims are expected to plunge relations between Britain and Russia to a new low.

Hugh Davies, counsel to the inquest, said: ‘Our assessment is that the Government material does establish a prima facie case as to the culpability of the Russian state in the death of Alexander Litvinenko.’

Memories: Widow Marina Litvinenko with her deceased husband Alexander Litvinenko on their wedding day in 1994

Mr Litvinenko, 43, was allegedly poisoned while drinking tea during a meeting with former KGB contacts at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square, pictured, in November 2006

He added the evidence ruled out the involvement of Chechen terrorist groups, the Spanish mafia, Russian exile Mr Berezovsky and the British Government in his death.

Mr Davies said assessments of material submitted by the Government had shown no evidence it had failed to protect him.

Until now, the Russians have remained at arm’s length but yesterday the Kremlin indicated it would like to become an ‘interested party’ when the full inquest begins next year, giving its own QC the chance to make submissions and cross-examine witnesses.

Mr Emmerson said the evidence amounted to a ‘state-sponsored assassination’ by Moscow. At yesterday’s hearing, he also cited evidence from a Wikileaks cable which quoted Mr Litvinenko saying Putin was implicated in the nation’s mafia and that Russia was a ‘mafia state’.

Neil Garnham QC, representing the Home Office, told the hearing he could ‘neither confirm nor deny’ whether Mr Litvinenko was employed by British intelligence services.

After the hearing, Mrs Litvinenko said she was ‘hopeful’ the full inquest would answer her questions, especially about Moscow’s alleged involvement. The full inquest, beginning on May 1, will be held before Sir Robert Owen who has been appointed assistant deputy coroner.