The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled on Tuesday that Russia was behind the murder of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.
The court said that there was a “strong presumption” that Litvinenko had been assassinated by individuals “acting as agents of the Russian state”.
It also added that the Russian government “failed to provide any other satisfactory and convincing explanation of the events”, nor did it carry out “an effective domestic investigation” aimed at identifying and punishing those responsible.
Litvinenko defected to the UK before which he had worked for Soviet and Russian security services. He was granted asylum in 2001.
In November 2006, he died in London after being poisoned with Polonium-210, a highly radioactive substance.
A previous inquiry carried out by British authorities in 2016 found the murder had been carried out by Russian nationals Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitriy Kovtun. Moscow has always refused to extradite them.
Russia however said on Tuesday that it would not recognise the “unfounded” ruling of the Strasbourg court.
“So far, the investigation has yielded no results, so making such allegations is at least unfounded,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
