RISC Management Limited Directors Keith Hunter and Clifford Knuckey paid $7,500 for sensitive Russian Intelligence and sold to rivals
Poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko was investigating a Russian minister and an ongoing legal battle over a vodka brand in the months before his death, an Inquiry has heard.
RISC Management, the private security and investigations firm was specifically tasked to obtain confidential information into Mr Gordiev’s involvement with a row over the ownership of Stolichnaya vodka.
The startling revelations came after three RISC Management Limited directors were required to give evidence to the Inquiry examining the death of Litvinenko.
Chief Executive Officer Keith Hunter, Managing Director Clifford Knuckey and Daniel Quirke had all been in contact with Litvinenko immediately prior to his death.
Former Met Police Officer turned private investigator Keith Hunter told the public Inquiry into Mr Litvinenko’s death that the former KGB officer was tasked with providing intelligence on Russia’s agriculture minister Alexei Gordiev and his prominent business associates.
Hunter assigned the case management to his co-director Clifford Knuckey who had conduct of the case together with a junior RISC operative Daniel Quirke.
Explicit details were provided by Hunter and Quirke as to the nature of the confidential source cash payments made by RISC and how Knuckey exclusively managed the relationship and made the cash payments.
Clifford Knuckey, also a former Met Police detective refused to attend the Inquiry citing his current criminal proceedings relating to allegations of bribing a serving police officer in the Mets Proceeds of Corruption Unit DC John McDonald. This case concerns Knuckey and RISC operatives obtaining confidential police and UK government information in the case of former Nigerian Politician James Ibori.
Poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko before and after his poisoning shown to the public Inquiry into his death Mr Litvinenko, who held five or six meetings with Mr Knuckey from February 2006 onwards, died on November 23 of that year, nearly three weeks after he drank tea laced with a radioactive substance in the company of two Russian contacts in a Mayfair hotel bar, near to the RISC offices.
Mr Quirke told the Inquiry that a client of RISC Management bought information on the intentions of Mr Gordiev over the Stolichnaya row.
Knuckey, as a middleman haggled the price paid for this. It is not known how much the information was eventually sold for.
Mr Quirke said there was a dispute between a businessman and the Russian state over the ownership of the recipe of Stolichnaya. This was resolved after Mr Litvinenko’s death when The Hague ruled in favour of the Russian government.
Asked by counsel to the Inquiry Hugh Davies QC what Mr Litvinenko was asked to do, Mr Quirke said Mr Knuckey objective was to “Obtain all intelligence they could about Gordiev, his associates and the agriculture ministry and any ongoing legal matters they intended to put against Stolichnaya.”
He added: “The client wanted to know what kind of people they would be up against in the courts, were they going to pursue them, could it be stalled, what was going to happen in the long term.” RISC has refused to identify the client.
RISC considered Gordiev as being “corrupt”, the Inquiry heard. “He (Litvinenko) said he was scared of the state apparatus of Russia, he was scared of Putin and he was a marked man,”
Mr Quirke said The Russian dissident, who was also working for British intelligence agencies and other private investigation firms during his time in the UK, told Mr Knuckey about the death of his friend, murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Mr Quirke confirmed that Mr Knuckey was also introduced to Andrei Lugovoi, who along with Dmitri Kovtun, is now wanted for Mr Litvinenko’s murder.
On one occasion Lugovoi provided a disk of below-par intelligence, which Mr Knuckey decided to pay him a reduced $7,500 US dollars for. Knuckey pressed hard to have the price lowered from an initial ask of $10,000 US dollars.
Earlier, the Inquiry heard from RISC Management’s chief executive Keith Hunter, who was previously a Metropolitan Police officer for 20 years.
Mr Hunter told the Inquiry confidential sources – like Mr Litvinenko – could be paid up to tens of thousands of pounds and in cash.
He told the Inquiry sources were paid in cash so there was “no audit trail” in order to protect the anonymity of sources.
All RISC records were subsequently destroyed. Mr Litvinenko was “well connected”, Mr Hunter said, but the firm were only able to sell around 25% to 30% of his intelligence.
Detective Inspector Craig Mascall later told the Inquiry that radioactive contamination was found at RISC Management’s offices.
RISC currently trades under a variety of names including Maddox Associates Limited and Animus.
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