Italian academic contaminated with polonium-210
Mario Scaramella, an Italian academic who allegedly met poisoned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London, has been seriously contaminated with the radioactive isotope polonium-210, which killed Mr Litvinenko last week.
Britain’s health protection agency said tests showed a significant quantity of Polonium 210 in Mr Scaramella’s body, which was “likely to be of concern for his immediate health”.Mr Scaramella has been helping an Italian parliamentary inquiry into the activities of Russian secret agents, including their alleged involvement in the murder last month of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Mr Scaramella has claimed that Romano Prodi, the Italian prime minister, “showed signs of friendly relations” with the KGB.
British counter-terrorist police investigating the death of Litvinenko plan to question witnesses and seek documentary evidence in Russia, in a move likely to test relations between President Vladimir Putin and the west.
“The problem for the UK police is that they are looking at a very serious action in the UK which has everything to do with the tensions of Russian politics,” one London-based Russian expert said on Friday.
UK police believe that only by extending their investigation to Moscow will they begin to unravel the complex network of people who had dealings with Litvinenko in the weeks leading to his death.
According to British officials it was now a “strong probability” that the UK government would try to pave the way for a police team to be sent to Moscow by invoking a mutual legal assistance agreement recently reached by UK and Russian prosecutors.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said Moscow was “still waiting for concrete questions” from British investigators. He spoke after meeting Margaret Beckett, the UK foreign secretary, who he said had “reminded” him of Russia’s pledge to provide assistance.
Source: MSNBC
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