ITALY: An Italian contact of a former Russian spy who was poisoned in London said yesterday the Russian mafia and corrupt government officials had a strong motive to silence Alexander Litvinenko.
Mario Scaramella, who helped Italy's parliament investigate Cold War-era Soviet espionage, said he met Mr Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on the day he is thought to have been poisoned. He said Mr Litvinenko had met two Russians at a hotel earlier.
Mr Litvinenko (41), a persistent critic of President Vladimir Putin, says he fell ill after the meetings three weeks ago. "We know very well who are the enemies of Litvinenko. The work we did for years was to underline the links among Russian mafia and some high-level corrupt officers in the Russian government," Mr Scaramella told BBC radio.
"I can only imagine that the people who he worked against . . . may be interested to attack him. The quality of his work, the level of expertise of this man, is so high that he can really represent a danger for them."
Mr Scaramella said that when he met Mr Litvinenko on November 1st in London he showed the Russian e-mails from a mutual source warning that their lives may be in danger.
The threat came from organised criminals based in St Petersburg, possibly acting on behalf of Russia's government, he said.
Friends of Mr Litvinenko have accused the Kremlin of orchestrating a plot to poison him but Russia has dismissed as "nonsense" claims that its agents poisoned the former agent.
Mr Litvinenko, now a British citizen, had been investigating the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, also a vocal critic of Mr Putin, who was gunned down at her Moscow apartment on October 7th.
Mr Litvinenko has lost all his hair and is suffering major organ failure. He is now in intensive care in a London hospital.
The toxicologist treating him said the poison may have been laced with a radioactive substance to render it more lethal.
British anti-terrorism police are investigating the case, which could have far-reaching diplomatic consequences.
Asked whether he feared for his own life, Mr Scaramella said he was not as well informed as Mr Litvinenko and was therefore unlikely to be a main target.
Mr Litvinenko co-authored a book in 2002 entitled Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he alleged Federal Security Service agents co-ordinated apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 in 1999.
Officials blame the bombings on Chechen rebels.