Putin 'probably' approved Litvinenko assassination

President Vladimir Putin "probably" approved the assassination of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, a public inquiry has found.

Sir Robert Owen, who led the inquiry, said it was likely the Russian leader signed off the killing following a long-running feud.

Mr Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who left Russia and claimed asylum in the UK in 2000, died in November 2006, aged 43, after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium in a London hotel.

Sir Robert's 300-page report said Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun were probably acting under the direction of Moscow's FSB intelligence service when they allegedly poisoned him with radioactive polonium 210 at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair.

Singling out then-FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev alongside Mr Putin, Sir Robert wrote: "Taking full account of all the evidence and analysis available to me I find that the FSB operation to kill Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin."