[20] In 1997, Litvinenko was promoted to the FSB Directorate of Analysis and Suppression of Criminal Groups, with the title of senior operational officer and deputy head of the Seventh Section.

He accused four senior officers of the Directorate of Analysis and Suppression of Criminal Groups of ordering his assassination: Major-General Yevgeny Khokholkov, N. Stepanov, A. Kamyshnikov, and N.

[32] In 2007, Sergey Dorenko provided the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal with a complete copy of an interview he conducted in April 1998 for ORT, a television station, with Litvinenko and his fellow employees.

The interview, of which only excerpts were broadcast in 1998, shows the FSB officers, who were disguised in masks or dark glasses, claim that their bosses had ordered them to kill, kidnap or frame prominent Russian politicians and businesspeople.

[35] With the help of Alexander Goldfarb, Litvinenko bought air tickets for the Istanbul–London–Moscow flight,[36] and asked for political asylum at Heathrow Airport during the transit stop on 1 November 2000.

During a meeting in May 2006, he allegedly provided security officials with information on the locations, roles, and activities of several "Russian" mafia figures with ties to Spain, including Zahkar Kalashov, Vitaly Izguilov and Tariel Oniani.

"[45] Akhmed Zakayev, who was present during the conversation, later arranged for an Imam to recite appropriate Koranic verses in the hospital room at Litvinenkos request the day before his death.

[49] In spite of this, Litvinenko often travelled overseas with no security arrangements, and freely mingled with the Russian community in the United Kingdom, and often received journalists at his home.

Litvinenko stated that "all the bloodiest terrorists of the world" were connected to FSB-KGB, including Carlos "The Jackal" Ramírez, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Abdullah Öcalan, Wadie Haddad of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Hawi who led the Communist Party of Lebanon, Ezekias Papaioannou from Cyprus, Sean Garland from Ireland, and many others.

[51][52] When asked in an interview who he thought the originator of the 2005 bombings in London was, Litvinenko responded saying,[50] "You know, I have spoken about it earlier and I shall say now, that I know only one organization, which has made terrorism the main tool of solving of political problems.

[58] In a 2003 interview with the Australian SBS TV network, and aired on Dateline, Litvinenko claimed that two of the Chechen terrorists involved in the 2002 Moscow theatre siege – whom he named "Abdul the Bloody" and "Abu Bakar" – were working for the FSB, and that the agency manipulated the rebels into staging the attack.

[66] Ella Kesayeva, co-chair of the group Voice of Beslan, supported Litvinenko's argument in a November 2008 article in Novaya Gazeta, noting the large number of hostage takers who were in government custody not long before attacking the school, and coming to the same conclusion.

[67] In a July 2005 interview with the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, Litvinenko alleged that Ayman al-Zawahiri, a prominent leader of al-Qaeda, was trained for half a year by the FSB in Dagestan in 1997.

[50][68][69][70] Litvinenko said that after this training, al-Zawahiri "was transferred to Afghanistan, where he had never been before and where, following the recommendation of his Lubyanka chiefs, he at once ... penetrated the milieu of Osama bin Laden and soon became his assistant in Al Qaeda.

"[71][70] Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy, a former KGB officer and writer, supported this claim and said that Litvinenko "was responsible for securing the secrecy of Al-Zawahiri's arrival in Russia; he was trained by FSB instructors in Dagestan, Northern Caucasus, in 1996–1997.

[80] In April 2006, a British member of the European Parliament for London, Gerard Batten of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), demanded an inquiry into the allegations.

[88] In his book Gang from Lubyanka, Litvinenko alleged that Vladimir Putin during his time at the FSB was personally involved in protecting the drug trafficking from Afghanistan organised by Abdul Rashid Dostum.

[90] Shortly before his death, Alexander Litvinenko alleged that Vladimir Putin had cultivated a "good relationship" with Semion Mogilevich (head of the Russia mafia) since 1993 or 1994.

"[94] According to Litvinenko, the 2005 controversy over the publication in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten of editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad was orchestrated by the FSB to punish Denmark for its refusal to extradite Chechen separatists.

His illness was later attributed to poisoning with radionuclide polonium-210 after the Health Protection Agency found significant amounts of the rare and highly toxic element in his body.

[98] Litvinenko met with two former agents early on the day he fell ill – Dmitry Kovtun and Andrey Lugovoy, in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel where high polonium contamination was found.

[citation needed] Before his meeting with Kovtun and Lugovoy, Litvinenko had lunch at Itsu, a sushi restaurant on Piccadilly in London with Italian acquaintance Mario Scaramella.

[100][101] Scaramella claimed to have information on the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who had been shot dead in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building three weeks prior.

[103] In a court hearing in London in 2015, a Scotland Yard lawyer concluded that "the evidence suggests that the only credible explanation is in one way or another the Russian state is involved in Litvinenko's murder".

The police want to charge former Russian spy Andrei Lugovoy, who met Litvinenko on 1 November 2006, the day officials believe the lethal dose of polonium-210 was administered.

[121] On the same day, The Guardian reported that the British government was preparing an extradition request asking that Andrei Lugovoy be returned to the UK to stand trial for Litvinenko's murder.

[9][141] After the hearing, Alex Goldfarb said: "There's some sort of collusion behind the scenes with Her Majesty's government and the Kremlin to obstruct justice"; Elena Tsirlina, Mrs Litvinenko's solicitor, concurred with him.

British Labour MP Ian Austin said: "Putin is an unreconstructed KGB thug and gangster who murders his opponents in Russia and, as we know, on the streets of London – and nothing announced today is going to make the blindest bit of difference."

[105] The same day, British Home Secretary Theresa May announced that assets belonging to both Lugovoi and Kovtun would be immediately frozen and that the Metropolitan Police were seeking their extradition.

[147] The Russian Ambassador was also summoned by the British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and demands were made that Russia cooperate with the investigation into Mr Litvinenko's murder with Foreign Office minister David Liddington asserting that Russia had demonstrated "a flagrant disregard for UK law, international law and standards of conduct, and the safety of UK citizens"[148][149][150] However, the government's response to the inquiry's results has been described by The Economist as consisting of "tough talk and little action".