The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that Russia "was responsible for the assassination of Aleksandr Litvinenko" in London.
Why it matters: Former KGB officer Litvinenko, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died in 2006 after being poisoned in London with Polonium 210, a rare radioactive isotope. Russia has always denied any involvement in his death.
What they found: The court noted in its ruling that a public inquiry in the United Kingdom found in 2016 that Litvinenko's killing had been carried out by former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, a businessman and former KGB agent. The U.K. inquiry said Putin "probably approved" the killing.
- "The Court found in particular that there was a strong prima facie case that, in poisoning Mr Litvinenko, Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun had been acting as agents of the Russian State," the European court said.
- Lugovoi and Kovtun have always denied being involved in the killing, but the European court said it was "beyond reasonable doubt" that the pair were behind it.
The bottom line: "Had the pair been involved in a 'rogue operation,' the information to prove that theory would lie entirely in the Russian authorities' hands," the European court concludes.
- "However, the Government had made no serious attempt to provide such information or to counter the findings of the UK authorities."
Driving the news: Litvinenko's widow, Marina Litvinenko, brought the case against Russia to the Strasbourg-based rights court.
Of note: Lugovoi was elected in 2007 as a member of the Russian State Duma, the lower house of the country's parliament. He was awarded a state medal "for services to the fatherland" in 2015.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
