Coroner's ruling raises question over Litvinenko inquest The planned inquest into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB spy, has been thrown into doubt after the British coroner ruled he was unable to hear secret evidence on whether the Russian state ordered the killing. Sir Robert Owen, coroner to the inquest, took the decision on public interest immunity issues and said an inquest had no power to take evidence in closed hearings in the absence of the interested parties. To examine the issue of Russian state responsibility without certain material which is subject to public interest immunity "would cause me grave concern," he said. He added the better course was not to address the issues at all "rather than to do so on an incomplete, inadequate and potentially misleading basis." The inquest, which has already been delayed until October, may now be replaced by a public inquiry - which is able to hear evidence in secret. An inquest would have been politically explosive. Litvinenko, who was a paid agent of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, died after his tea was spiked with radioactive polonium. In a deathbed statement, Litvinenko accused Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, of ordering his death. There had been concerns from Foreign Office officials that revelations in the inquest could damage links with Russia after an improvement in the past two years. William Hague, foreign secretary, had requested that some government evidence in the Litvinenko case be examined in private. The coroner will now hear arguments from the government and other parties as to whether the power to hold an inquiry should be exercised in this case. Alex Goldfarb, a Litvinenko family friend involved in preparing the legal case of Litvinenko's widow Marina, said it was "profoundly dismaying that the judge decided to go with the government." "On the other hand, it's an effective admission that the Russians did it, because if they hadn't, the [UK] wouldn't have started to hide the evidence," Mr Goldfarb added. So we now know that there is strong evidence that the Russians committed radioactive murder, and that the British government wants to keep it secret - which tells us more about the British government than about the Russian government. [The British] don't want to embarrass Putin, they want to appease Putin, for whatever reasons. Mr Goldfarb said Ms Litvinenko would have to decide whether to press for a public inquiry. "Her options are either to appeal, or to ask for a public inquiry which accepts the notion of closed hearings, where the evidence would never be disclosed, but at least it will be reviewed judicially, or to walk away altogether," he said. Andrei Lugovoi, a Russian parliamentary deputy, is accused of murdering Litvinenko but remains in Moscow.