Russia:The Alexander Litvinenko murder investigation widened dramatically last night as Russian prosecutors announced they would treat the sudden illness of a key witness in that case as attempted murder.
Last night, it was confirmed that one of the men who met Mr Litvinenko in London on November 1st, the day he fell ill after being poisoned with polonium-210, was also being treated in a Moscow hospital.
Dmitry Kovtun was one of two Russian associates of Mr Litvinenko who protested their innocence of any role in the attempt to poison the dissident ex-KGB officer.
Mr Kovtun and the former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy have already confirmed they met Mr Litvinenko in the Millennium hotel's Pine Bar, but insisted it was entirely circumstantial. They say they met Mr Litvinenko for business reasons and had travelled to the British capital to watch the Moscow soccer club CSKA play Arsenal.
Both men then returned to Moscow, where they live, but said they would co-operate with any police investigation. It is believed that Mr Kovtun had met Scotland Yard detectives in the city the day before he was reported ill.
Last night, there were differing reports as to Mr Kovtun's condition. Some media reports said he was in a coma, which his lawyers denied vehemently. But his condition was sufficiently grave for the Russian prosecutor's office to announce it was treating his condition as an attempted murder caused by a form of radioactive poisoning.
Russian authorities have also opened their own parallel murder hunt into the death of Mr Litvinenko in London.
The British embassy in Moscow has pointedly refused to confirm who detectives were meeting in the Russian capital, insisting that they could not report the details of an ongoing investigation. However, an embassy spokesman has confirmed that the Russian authorities have been co-operative.
It is believed that British detectives postponed plans to speak with Mr Lugovoy yesterday, although he has repeatedly insisted through the Russian media he has nothing to hide and wants to help the investigation.
In London, there was also some confusion about the burial rites for Mr Litvinenko who, according to some reports, made a deathbed conversion to Islam last month. He was buried at Highgate cemetery in a sealed casket in an Islamic funeral ceremony, but was not first taken to a mosque, because of concerns about radiation emissions from his body.
The separate - but intertwined - allegation from former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar that he became seriously ill while attending an academic conference at NUI Maynooth was also aired again yesterday in the Russian media.
In a newspaper article, Dr Gaidar wrote of his love for Ireland but concluded that since doctors could not find any alternative cause for his sudden illness, he believes he was poisoned by enemies of the Kremlin. Dr Gaidar's doctors in both Dublin and Moscow have declined to confirm he was poisoned, although they noted sudden changes in his metabolism.