Italian security expert met with poisoned ex-Russian spy
An Italian security expert today confirmed he met with a former Russian spy in London before the outspoken critic of the Kremlin was taken seriously ill with what British police and doctors suspect is poisoning by a toxic metal.
Mario Scaramella told a news conference in Rome he met with Col. Alexander Litvinenko, an outspoken former KGB and Federal Security Service agent, at a sushi restaurant in the early afternoon of November 1 to discuss information on the killing of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Scaramella said he had received emails from a confidential source identifying a group of men from St Petersburg as the journalist’s killers and listing other potential targets for assassination – including himself, Litvinenko and Italian Sen Paolo Guzzanti, the former chair of a parliamentary commission that examined cases of past KGB infiltration in Italy.
Scaramella said he had deemed the information unreliable, but wanted to confer with Litvinenko, who had been one of his contacts when he worked as a consultant for the commission and who was looking into the journalist’s death.
Before sitting down for a half-hour talk, the Russian helped himself from the restaurant’s buffet and received some soup from an attendant, Scaramella said, adding that he did not eat anything because it was after lunchtime.
“During the meeting he looked perfectly normal,” Scaramella told reporters.
Litvinenko confirmed the information seemed unreliable and the two arranged to speak again.
But when Scaramella called Litvinenko’s home the following day, his wife told him he had been taken ill.
Litvinenko is fighting for his life in the intensive care unit of a London hospital, the victim of what his friends and fellow dissidents call an assassination attempt by the Russian government.
The Kremlin and Russia’s security agency have strongly denied any involvement.
A doctor at the hospital said Litvinenko may have been poisoned with radioactive thallium.
The counterterrorism unit of London’s Metropolitan Police is investigating the case. Scaramella said he had given his “full availability” to British authorities after hearing that foul play was suspected.
He declined to say whether he had been questioned and would not speculate on any possible suspects, but said Litvinenko had told him he had another meeting before coming to the sushi restaurant.
Alexander Goldfarb, who helped Litvinenko defect to Britain in 2000, said yesterday that the poison might have been sprinkled into the Russian’s drink during the meeting at a central London hotel with two men – one of whom was a former KGB officer that Litvinenko knew.
Litvinenko has been an outspoken critic of the Kremlin since he left Russia six years ago.
Guzzanti, the Italian senator, said during the news conference that blaming Russia’s security service for the near-fatal poisoning was still speculation, but a strong possibility.
“He was considered a traitor, and a traitor helping other traitors, the Chechens,” Guzzanti said.
