The government is refusing to release “super-sensitive” evidence from Britain’s spy agencies which could shed light on the mysterious death of a Russian whistleblower, the high court has heard, fuelling perceptions of a cover-up.
The home secretary, Amber Rudd, has made an application preventing the disclosure of intelligence files concerning Alexander Perepilichnyy, who collapsed and died in November 2012 outside his luxury home in Weybridge, Surrey, after he had been out jogging. He was 44.
Surrey police have said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death. However, a pre-inquest hearing heard that traces of a rare and deadly plant poison, Gelsemium elegans, were discovered in his stomach and that the poison has been used in the past by Russian and Chinese assassins.
On Monday, the case spilled over into the high court. The judge, Mr Justice Cranston, held two sessions: one open to the public and the other secret. The home secretary had filed a public interest immunity (PII) certificate, arguing that disclosure of possible evidence from MI5 and MI6 might damage national security.
In the months before his death, Perepilichnyy received a number of death threats. He had revealed details of a $230m (£160m) fraud carried out by a Russian crime gang with links to the top of the Kremlin. The money was stolen from taxes paid by the investment company Hermitage Capital to the Russian treasury.
Perepilichnyy had shared this information with Swiss prosecutors. They had frozen several Swiss bank accounts involved in the fraud. Shortly before he died, Perepilichnyy took out life insurance worth £2m.
In 2015, the coroner Richard Travers asked the government what information it had about threats to Perepilichnyy in the 10-and-a-half months before his death. It also asked for details of contacts between the Russian businessman and five members of the Moscow-based organised crime gang, headed by Dmitry Klyuev.
The government refused to show Travers this “sensitive” material. Instead, it allowed him a “fleeting glance” of a one-page summary of the evidence, the court heard on Monday. Nearly 100 pages of Surrey police evidence were also withheld. This included two documents described as especially secret.
Henrietta Hill QC, acting for Hermitage, told the judge there were striking parallels between Perepilichnyy’s death,and the murder in 2006 of Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned by two Kremlin assassins with a radioactive cup of green tea.
There was a possible perception of cover-up, she said. “What we have here at its highest is a reprisal killing on British soil by poisoning of an individual living in the UK whose death has been perpetrated by a Russian crime group with links to the Russian state.”
The government’s hidden evidence bore directly on the key questions in this case, she said, including “whether this man was murdered or not”. She said there were real concerns that the police investigation was badly flawed.
Perepilichnyy’s stomach contents were thrown away after an inconclusive autopsy. It took detectives a week to discover Perepilichnyy’s shadowy links with Russia, despite the fact he featured in the Serious Organised Crime Agency database, the court heard.
Surrey police were not represented in court. Detectives have said there is no proof that Perepilichnyy was poisoned or assaulted. They admit they have been unable to find a cause of death.
Peter Skelton QC, acting for the coroner, disputed that the case was similar to Litvinenko’s and said that in the absence of any identified murderer or murderers such comparisons “fall apart”. Perepilichnyy’s widow, Nataliya, has said she doesn’t believe her husband was killed.
After a long delay, a three-week inquest into Perepilichnyy’s death is due to be held in March. Hill suggested that Travers might be replaced by a coroner who had been security vetted and could read the government’s secret files, or by a high court judge who would have access to the intelligence files.
James Eadie QC, acting for the home secretary, defended the use of a secrecy application. “Open justice is properly important but not if there is a real and serious risk of creating national security damage,” he told the court. “Considerable weight has to be afforded to national security interests.”
Monday’s hearing follows a public inquiry report in January which concluded that Vladimir Putin had “probably approved” Litvinenko’s polonium poison murder. It also comes after a warning by Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, that Russia is aggressively using propaganda, espionage and subversion across both Europe and the UK.
In an application, Guardian News and Media said there was a “strong public interest” in transparency. It said: “This PII application is considered baffling by many. Surrey police say the death is not suspicious yet certain documents are said to be too sensitive to share even with the senior coroner.”
Bill Browder, the CEO of Hermitage Capital, said: “The authorities have been emphatic there is nothing suspicious about Perepilichnyy’s death. They have aggressively gone after anyone who has sought the truth, trying to shut them down.
“At the same time they are saying there are documents which concern his death and which are a threat to national security. These two positions are utterly inconsistent. They raise the suspicion that there is a cover-up going on.”
The judge is expected to deliver his ruling later.
