FSKN chief calls mention of his name at Litvinenko hearing "nonsense"
MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) - The head of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service (FSKN), Viktor Ivanov, has said the mention of his name in Britain in connection with the case of Alexander Litvinenko was a provocation.
"The information heard from the London court looks even more like nonsense, even if it had not been direct slander," he told reporters in Moscow on Friday.
"For the past three months, the London court has been pouring this fiction direct onto the pages of British newspapers, into newswires, on television and spreading it further through global media. Dirt is being poured on Russian officials," Ivanov said.
"This whole show, which is staged, aims to discredit Russia and its officials," he said.
"The court relies on the testimony of an ostensible witness who is giving evidence over the death of Litvinenko. Concurrently, the witness is pouring sleazy information, although he is not and could not be a witness of the events of the mid-1990s which are being mentioned, of the individuals who are being mentioned, and so on. He bases (his evidence) on Litvinenko's information, but Litvinenko was not and could not be a witness of those events either," the FSKN chief said.
"The London court is being used cynically and rudely as a mechanism and mouthpiece for distributing false information. The clients are obvious - some western political elites and special services, so there is no place here for basic decencies and administration of justice," Ivanov said.
"Another witness, who resides in Washington, a traitor and defector, also says that he possessed information about some criminal links Russia had ten years ago. The question arises: why did he not inform the U.S. authorities that there are officials linked to illicit drug trafficking, especially Colombian cartels? These high competent officials had for five years been in close cooperation with us, and me personally," Ivanov said.