Last year, British Home Secretary Theresa May ruled against a public inquiry into the 2006 radioactive poisoning death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko out of concern for “international relations” – with Russia.  This year, there is growing outrage over Russia’s suspected role in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine – and the Litvinenko inquiry is back on.

The British inquiry’s mission will include finding out “where responsibility for the death lies” and making “appropriate recommendations”.  Coroner Sir Robert Owen had already called for an inquiry, saying the UK government’s investigation had already established a “prima facie case” showing Russian culpability.

It comes at the same time the Prime Minister David Cameron has pressed the EU for tougher economic sanctions against Russia because of the MH17 crash.  Number 10 says the timing is coincidental. 

Litvinenko in November of 2006 sat down to tea with two other former KBG agents in London.  Within days, he was feeling weak, was frequently nauseous, and his hair was falling out.  On the third day he died, but not before allowing his deathbed photo to be revealed to the world, so that his last act would be to accuse Vladimir Putin of his murder by polonium-210 slipped into his tea. 

Litvinenko had worked his way up from the Societ military, to KGB, and after the cold war serviced in the Russian successor spy agency FSB.  But he grew disillusioned, left the spy game and had written a book about Russian clandestine hijinx – and he named names.  He eventually settled in to short-lived asylum in England in 2000.