UK Inquiry Into Litvinenko’s Death Made in Cold War Spirit – UK Official

United Kingdom's investigation into the death of former Soviet KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was one-sided and was conducted in a Cold War manner, Andy Brooks, the general secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain told Sputnik on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) Alexander Mosesov — Earlier in the day, the British inquiry blamed Litvinenko’s death on the Russian authorities, despite failing to prove that the polonium-210 used to poison the former agent came from Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the inquiry was politicized and overshadowed Moscow-London relations.

"The report which has come out appears to be one-sided, because the conclusion is precisely based on the assumptions that are made by the British police… The Russian position and the Russian offer to cooperate with the British police has not been taken up," Brooks said.

He added that UK ruling circles were assuming stances that are hostile to Russia because of Moscow's interests in Ukraine and Syria, classifying London's actions as "Cold War politics."

At the same time, Brooks thinks that investigators from the United Kingdom and Russia should join their efforts to investigate the case.

“A positive response would be for the British police to cooperate with the Russian police… to look at the statements of the two individuals named [Kovtun and Lugovoy] in a balanced way and to look at other suspects or other motives,” Andy Brooks said.

Litvinenko fled from Russia to the United Kingdom in 2000. He died in 2006, three weeks after drinking tea with his former colleagues Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy in central London.

Lugovoy has said in the past that he passed a polygraph test conducted by British experts, which proved that he was not guilty of murdering Litvinenko.