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UK: EX-K.G.B AGENT MYSTERIOUSLY FALLS ILL November 20, 2006
Zainab Osman
(SomaliNet) The British police said Sunday that they were investigating the suspected poisoning of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a Russian former K.G.B. operative living in exile in Britain who had been inquiring into the killing of a journalist in Moscow last month.
However, the Russian authorities have no proof over the allegations that the Russian secret service had Mr. Litvinenko poisoned. Mr. Litvinenko is depicted by fellow exiles as a prominent opponent of the Kremlin, and he had told them he was looking into the killing on Oct. 7 of Anna Politkovskaya, who had made her name as a critic of the government's policies in Chechnya and who was gunned down at her apartment building.
The Sunday Times of London said the former agent had met Nov. 1 with an Italian contact identified only as Mario in a central London sushi bar. Last week, Mr. Litvinenko told reporters he began to feel sick within hours of the meeting with Mario.
Mr. Berezovsky said Mr. Litvinenko had been granted British citizenship, so the poisoning was "a terror attack against a British citizen in Britain." The incident, he said, could create a problem for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has sought to cultivate close ties with Mr. Putin.
John Henry, a clinical toxicologist who has been treating Mr. Litvinenko, told the BBC: "He's got a prospect of recovering. He's a got a prospect of dying." Mr. Litvinenko's condition at the moment is considered to be critical; his bone marrow had failed and is not producing any white blood cells.
Mr. Litvinenko is a big criticizer of the Russian government and belongs to the so-called émigré circle which was branded by Russia as a terrorist cell that is operating in Britain.