What follows is a long and very detailed expert legal analysis of the Litvinenko inquiry by Russia Insider's International Affairs Editor, Alexander Mercouris, who was a practicing lawyer for 12 years at the Royal Courts of Justice, the venue of the Litvinenko inquiry.
The first point to grasp about the Public Inquiry that has now delivered its verdict in the Litvinenko case is that it should never have happened at all. The second point is that Inquiry’s decision that the Russian authorities were “probably” behind Litvinenko’s murder is unsustainable and makes no sense.