Romford Ukip candidate thinks website was ‘destroyed’ by Russians over Alexander Litvinenko stance

It was mysteriously “destroyed” overnight – but could the Romford Ukip candidate’s website have been hacked by Russians?

Gerard Batten, also the Ukip MEP for London, believes the sudden disappearance of his homepage is down to computer whizzes.

He called the vanishing act “suspicious”, as the last post on the site related to the Alexander Litvinenko inquiry taking place in London.

He told the Recorder: “Technical advice is that the methods used to destroy my website are very similar to those known to originate from Russia.”

Mr Batten met former KGB spy Mr Litvinenko in 2006 and became friendly with him. The Russian dissident died in November 2006 after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210.

In 2008 Mr Batten wrote an article for Freedom Today magazine giving his thoughts on his death. The last post on his site repeated his stance and included a copy of the article.

He said: “It seems suspicious my website, which has never been hacked before, should be attacked now this case is again in the news.

“I was a life-long opponent of communism in the old Soviet Union.”

But every cloud has a silver lining – Mr Batten said he was considering redesigning his site anyway.