POISONED TO PUNISH

David Tennant plays the real-life Russian defector who was assassinated on British soil

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Litvinenko From Thursday 15 December, ITVX

Once seen, the photograph of defector Alexander ‘Sasha’ Litvinenko on the verge of death in a London hospital bed after being poisoned by a Russian agent is impossible to forget.

Now, new streaming service ITVX tells the remarkable story of Litvinenko’s poisoning – and the hunt for his killer – in a powerful four-part drama series starring David Tennant.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely believed to have ordered the former KGB officer’s death in an assassination that shocked the world in November 2006. The 44-year-old Litvinenko, who had been granted political asylum in the UK in 2001, was struck down at a London hotel by a dose of radioactive polonium-210, one of the deadliest substances on the planet, when it was slipped into a cup of tea.