The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Russia is responsible for the murder of former KGB agent Aleksander Litvinenko, who was killed by polonium in 2006 in the UK.
The Strasbourg judges agreed with Litvinenko's wife, who had appealed to the ECHR: her husband was killed by people who acted on behalf of the Russian government, or in any case with the connivance and help of the Russian authorities.
The Russian authorities, according to the Court, have done little to shed light on the matter, not even cooperating with the Strasbourg investigation. For this reason, Moscow was sentenced to pay 100,000 euros for moral damages to Litvinenko's wife and another 22,500 for legal costs.
"There is a strong suspicion that Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitriy Kovtun, the men who poisoned Litvinenko, acted as agents of the Russian government", writes the court, stressing that "the Russian government has not provided any other satisfactory and convincing explanation of the events. or capable of invalidating the results of the investigation conducted by the United Kingdom ".
The sentence will become final in 3 months if the parties do not ask and get a second examination.
The reaction of the Kremlin was immediate, which through its spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, branded the conclusions of the European Court of Human Rights as "groundless". Tass reports it.
(Unioneonline / D)