KavkazCenter - United States denied political asylum to Litvinenko's widow

United States denied political asylum to Litvinenko's widow

Family of the poisoned former Russian state security service officer Alexander Litvinenko addressed the American authorities with the request for political asylum in the Unied States, however received official refusal. This was told by the widow of the ex-FSB Lieutenant-Colonel, who died from radioactive poisoning in London, in November, 2006.

Marina Litvinenko is in Israel now and she gave an interview to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot.

The interview on four full pages of the paper is describing private life of the late Alexander Litvinenko, his conflict with the former leadership of the FSB, the flight from Russia, and mostly – the poisoning and the last weeks of his life.

Almost all the information, voiced by Marina Litvinenko has been known already earlier, except for the story about the flight of the family from Russia in 2000.

According to Marina Litvinenko, her husband did not coordinate his departure with her. He had left Russia secretly, through the territory of North Caucasus. Further, under the insistance of her husband, Marina and their son Anatoly had purchased a tourist trip to Spain, and from there they had gone to Turkey where they were met by the father of the family.

In Turkey Litvinenko had addressed the United States embassy with a request for political asylum. According to Marina, the received refusal was motivated as follows: «As we are in the pre-election campaign process, we can not interfere in such delicate affairs».

According to advice of confidants of the disgraced Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, Litvinenko and his family arrived to Britain in November, 2000, and in May of the next year they received the status of political refugees there. Marina also told that a few weeks prior to the poisoning, her husband officially became a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Axis News reported.

A Spanish paper, El Semanal Digital earlier reported that Mr Livinenko fled from Russia to England not through Turkey but through Israel where he lived for some time in Jerusalem and was debriefed by Israeli secret services.