Walter Litvinenko, whose son, Alexander, a former Russian spy, was tainted in London. Photograph: Jane Baker
For Walter Litvinenko, it was a formidable but required step. After his son Alexander was murdered in London in 2006 in the majority shameful domestic murdering given the cold war, Walter fled Russia for refuge in horse opera Europe. He chose Italy. It offering a new, anonymous, KGB-free life.
But dual years after nearing in the exhausted strand locale of Senigallia on the Adriatic coast, Litvinenko says his family is being persecuted once again, their grill raided and sealed down, their ask for haven regularly refused notwithstanding justification that they would be at risk in Russia. Now, he says, they have run out of income and rely on present handouts for food. For Litvinenko, there is usually one trustworthy explanation: Silvio Berlusconi"s rejection to dissapoint the Kremlin or his friend, Russian budding apportion Vladimir Putin.
"We have depressed plant to a domestic game," Litvinenko pronounced today, vocalization from the close prosaic he shares with eight relatives. "Berlusconi is no improved than Putin. All European governments have been flirting with Putin. Berlusconi"s coherence on him, and on Russian gas, equates to that we don"t get asylum."
Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB representative incited dissident, was tainted with a prohibited isotope, sparking theories that the Kremlin systematic the killing. A British military review resulted in a unsuccessful try to extradite an additional former KGB agent, Andrei Lugovoi.
Walter Litvinenko, 71, arrived in Italy in Apr 2008 with his wife, Lyuba. Their daughter Tatiana – Alexander Litvinenko"s half-sister – and her father and their dual immature kids followed eight months later, fasten Walter"s son Maxim Litvinenko, his mother and immature daughter. At this point the Litvinenkos practical for asylum.
At the same time they non-stop a grill in the traveller review of Rimini. Maxim Litvinenko, who changed to Italy 9 years ago, is a veteran chef. But shortly after opening their business, and securing internal permissions, the military sensitive them they were handling illegally, with one room not in formulation permission.
On 31 Oct 2009 military detonate in to the grill at 12.45am, angry of "loud music". Tatiana says the last guest had left at midnight and the family were sensitively clearing up. The military demanded to see the Litvinenkos" papers. When Tatiana told them her papers were in her flat, a short travel away, one law enforcemetn officer grabbed her rounded off by the arm, she says. "I struggled free. He afterwards chased after me and pushed me from behind. I crushed my head on the marble floor. I lost consciousness." She says she suffered concussion. "I felt intoxicated for days. I had to see the doctor."
The restaurant, La Terrazza, was eventually close down in November. The Litvinenkos were forced to move to a cheaper prosaic down the seashore in circuitously Senigallia.
The family contend they do not know if the nuisance has been certified at the top levels. "I thought Europe had 100% sequence of law. We detected in Italy this isn"t true. It"s connectors and the mafia. It"s as if we never arrived in Europe but finished up in a small Russian province," Tatiana says.
Italian immigration officials have interrogated the family twice. According to Tatiana, they voiced small seductiveness in given the Litvinenkos fled their home in the southern Russian locale of Nalchik. Instead, they longed for to know how they had come to Italy and either their visas had been forged.
Britain"s own offers of haven to high-profile Russian exiles together with Litvinenko and his patron, Boris Berezovsky, have prolonged murderous Russia. Berlusconi has selected to equivocate the same mistake, Walter Litvinenko says.
Paolo Guzzanti, a former senator in Berlusconi"s Forza Italia celebration who fell out with the budding apportion over his loyalty with Putin, pronounced it was expected that Berlusconi had shut off the haven applications. "I have no acknowledgment of this, but it seems obvious, given the loving attribute in in in between Putin and Berlusconi, that all probable obstacles to extenuation haven will be lifted in sequence to delayed down the procession or have it impossible," he said.
A orator for Berlusconi insisted the budding minister"s attribute with Putin had zero to do with decisions about the Litvinenko family. He said: "With requests for asylum, together with from countries similar to Russia, there are European procedures that Italy follows. It has zero to do with personal relations in in in between leaders and zero to do with politics."
Two weeks ago Walter Litvinenko published an open minute on a human rights website declared after Anna Politkovskaya (www.annaviva.com), the publisher and Kremlin censor murdered in Moscow in 2006. He pronounced Berlusconi had done the Litvinenkos" incident unbearable. Despite assurances that their box would be quickly resolved zero had happened, he said. "It"s transparent Berlusconi is boring this routine out for as prolonged as possible," he added.
On Sunday the Litvinenkos outlayed their last euros. They paid for 10 eggs. The family – together with dual adults over 70 and dual small immature kids – are now pity a little three-bedroom flat. There is no prohibited H2O and usually dual hours a day of heating. A internal church gives them bread and apples; differently they eat pancakes.
The Litvinenkos have to compensate €540 for subsequent month"s rent. Currently, they say, they have no thought how to find it.
Walter Litvinenko blames Putin for the family"s misfortune. "He killed my son. He"s a ill man," he says. Tatiana, however, refuses to criticize Putin and focuses on Berezovsky. "My hermit shielded him. But he"s obviously not meddlesome in us." She admits, however, that she has not asked Berezovsky for anything.
Walter frequency ever leaves the flat. With the still strand cafes and off-season feel, Senigallia seems a undiluted place to shun from the Russian state and the agents.
Yet Walter admits he is disturbed the same predestine that befell his son competence await him too. "There is a sure subliminal fear. In Nalchik I wasn"t fearful given I knew everybody"s faces. Here it"s different. At any impulse a chairman could come up to you, and that would be the end."
Additional reporting: Giancarlo Castello and Tom Kington in Rome
Friends in high places
Silvio Berlusconi is Vladimir Putin"s majority fervent crony in Europe, and sees himself as the man to insist the Russian to an mostly nonplussed west.
Their close organisation goes behind to Berlusconi"s second army as budding minister, in 2001-06. In Apr 2008 Berlusconi hosted Putin at his lush Sardinian villa, with Berlusconi on vacation Putin"s chateau nearby St Petersburg last year. Putin additionally phoned Berlusconi in his sanatorium bed after he was pounded and lost multiform teeth last year.
Soon after his recover from sanatorium in December, after being pounded in the travel by a discontented voter wielding a reproduction medieval cathedral, Berlusconi appeared sporting a Russian Federation army jacket. The sweatshirt with the double-headed Russian eagle trademark was a present from Putin.
Ultimately, of course, the attribute is about business. Thirty per cent of Italy"s oil and gas imports already come from Russia and blurb ties in in in between the countries have roughly tripled given 2000.
Tom Kington
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