23-11-2006 Litvinenko poisoning: the main players Friday November 24, 2006 Guardian Alexander Goldfarb Alex Goldfarb and Alexander Litvinenko met in a Russian prison. In the late 1990s, Mr Goldfarb was director of a George Soros-funded project to tackle TB in the Russian penal system. They met in Lefortovo prison, where Mr Litvinenko was awaiting trial on charges of abuse of office. Mr Litvinenko had been charged after going public with a claim that he had been ordered to assassinate Boris Berezovsky by his FSB superiors. The pair became friends, and the FSB agent rang Mr Goldfarb in 2000 when he wanted to defect. Mr Goldfarb, then working for Mr Berezovsky in the US, flew to Russia and arranged his escape via Turkey to Britain, where the defector requested asylum. Mr Goldfarb is executive director of the International Foundation for Civil Liberties, set up by the exiled Russian oligarch Mr Berezovsky in 2000 as an umbrella group for human rights activists. It is based...