A former KGB colonel, probing the recent murder of a Russian journalist, is critical after being poisoned allegedly by political enemies here, media reports said on Sunday.
LONDON: A former KGB colonel, probing the recent murder of a Russian journalist, is critical after being poisoned allegedly by political enemies here, media reports said on Sunday.
Alexander Litvinenko, who fled the current Russian regime to claim asylum in Britain, was taken ill suddenly on November 1 while investigating the murder of dissident Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, The Mail said.
According to the report, Litvinenko was poisoned following a clandestine meeting with an Italian associate, Mario Scaramella, at the Itsu Japanese restaurant in Piccadilly.
He is now admitted in the University College Hospital here where he is said to have a 50 per cent chance of survival, the report said.
The former KGB man was supposedly given documents in the meeting which claimed that Politkovskaya was murdered by four members of President Vladimir Putin's federal security
service, known as the FSB, the report said.
Scotland Yard sources said that the Litvinenko case was being investigated as "suspicious poisoning" and that his condition was "serious but stable".
"I ordered the food, and he took just water and was hurrying me. From the documents, I understood that the mentioned people could have arranged the murder of Politkovskaya. We parted nearly at once. As soon as I got home, I fell down," Litvinenko told Russian news agency Izvestia last week.
"They probably thought I would be dead from heart failure by the third day. I do feel very bad. I've never felt like this before, like my life is hanging on the ropes," he was quoted as saying on Saturday.
A source close to Litvinenko claimed he was made the victim of a revenge attack by the Russian regime, the report said.
Friends of the Russian believe he was followed around London by the FSB which also monitored his e-mails and phone calls.
Mi5, the British Intelligence Agency, has also launched an urgent operation, the report said.
Quoting senior security sources, the tabloid said the Russian had been poisoned with thallium, a virulent toxin that can cause death within ten hours. It is believed he has three times the maximum limit in his body, a potentially fatal dose.
Thallium - an odourless, colourless poison - can be lethal even in doses of less than a gram. Litvinenko's supporters believe FSB agents injected the toxin into his body.
A former colonel in the FSB and its predecessor the KGB, Litvinenko defected to Britain in 2000 after fleeing treason charges in Russia. He was granted political asylum in May 2001.
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