Published 20-07-2013, 07:08
William Dunkerley
Publishing Consultant, Senior Fellow of the American University in Moscow
Coroner Sir Robert
Owen was taken to the woodshed by the British government. At issue is his
conduct of the inquest into the death of Alexander Litvinenko. A reputed former
KGB spy, Litvinenko died suspiciously in London
in 2006.
Owen's rebuke came as a result of the course he had charted for himself in
investigating Litvinenko's death. The coroner's statutory responsibility,
according to Home Secretary Theresa May, is to "ascertain who the deceased
was, and how, when, and where he came by his death." But Owen was not
focusing on those issues; he was not doing his job.
Instead, Owen had been conducting a rogue criminal investigation, looking for
Russian state involvement in the death. The late Boris Berezovsky, a fugitive
Russian oligarch who had been hiding out in London, had accused Russian president
Vladimir Putin of culpability. He never presented any evidence, however. But
Owen was apparently picking up where Berezovsky left off.
The Home Secretary reined in Owen, pointing out that he had overstepped his
bounds. She stated that the law does not allow a coroner to determine criminal
liability.
Earlier news reports uncovered the fact of Owen's illicit criminal
investigation. In response, he concocted a scheme to transfer his work to a
different venue, one without the restrictions placed on coroners regarding
criminality. It was a clever strategy.
But when Owen wrote to the government requesting the transfer, he
misrepresented the circumstances of the case. He said, "It is a highly
exceptional situation when the victim of what appears to have been a murder is
interviewed by police before he dies, and makes a public statement in which he
names those whom he suspects of being responsible for his death…"
However, the public record shows that Litvinenko made no such statement to the
police. It is true that there was a written public statement accusing Putin
that was attributed to Litvinenko. It was released after his death. But that
document has been shown to be a fraud. The statement was a hoax, and the hoaxer
has publically confessed
At last count, the Litvinenko inquest has spent over $2 million of British taxpayer
money. Despite all the flurry of activity created by Owen, there does not seem
to have been any progress toward establishing the cause and manner of death.
The work thus far seems to have been a complete waste of money.
What more will it take for the coroner to rule on the specific circumstances? Secretary
May called Litvinenko's death an "apparent murder." Was it indeed a
homicide? Or was it a suicide or accident? It is hard to understand why the
coroner could not have ruled on that long ago.
Likewise on the cause of death. Many media reports claim that radioactive
polonium was the agent of death. Other reports say the cause was thallium
poisoning. It should be possible to answer this question with scientific
evidence. Either there is evidence, or there isn't.
Litvinenko's death happened nearly seven years ago. If sufficient evidence is
not on hand, perhaps it is time to admit that the cause and manner of death are
indeterminable, and then simply close the case. Why spend more British taxpayer
money to accomplish nothing.
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