• Russian suspect in the 2006 assassination of dissident former died of Covid.
• Europe’s top court ruled that Russia was responsible for the 2006 killing in London.
• Litvinenko died after drinking tea laced with the radioactive isotope Polonium 210.

A key Russian suspect in the 2006 assassination of dissident former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in Britain died after contracting Covid-19, According to a Russian lawmaker.

“That is unfortunate. Dmitry Kovtun, a close and devoted friend, died unexpectedly after suffering from a coronavirus infection “Andrei Lugovoi, a member of Russia’s lower house of parliament who has also been charged in the case, said

“It is a terrible and irreparable loss,” he said in a statement.

The TASS news agency cited someone close to Kovtun as saying he had died in a Moscow hospital.

Europe’s top rights court in September ruled that Russia was responsible for the 2006 killing in London of Litvinenko, a verdict swiftly rejected by Moscow.

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The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights said there was a “strong prima facie” case that Lugovoi and Kovtun “had been acting on the direction or control of the Russian authorities”.

But in Moscow, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the claim.

Britain says Litvinenko died after drinking tea laced with the radioactive isotope Polonium 210 at a hotel, in a case that has weighed on relations between London and Moscow ever since.

British police identified Lugovoi and businessman Kovtun as prime suspects after meeting Litvinenko in a central London hotel.

Extradition attempts, however, were unsuccessful, and they both rejected the charges, with Lugovoi claiming parliamentary immunity.

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