Brits Probe Poisoning Of Ex-Russian Spy

Friends Say He Was Targeted By Kremlin, But Moscow Denies Involvement

(CBS/AP)  Scotland Yard has announced it is investigating the suspected poisoning of a man in London, CBS News' Vicki Barker reports. Former KGB agent Col. Alexander Litvinenko is fighting for his life in a London hospital after being poisoned with a highly toxic chemical. His friends say he was the target of a Kremlin-backed plot; a claim Moscow has called "nonsense."

Litvinenko was transferred to an intensive care unit, where he is under armed guard, after his condition deteriorated, hospital officials said Monday.

Litvinenko "remains in a serious condition, but last night there was a slight deterioration in his condition, and he was transferred to intensive care as a precautionary measure," University College Hospital said in a statement.

Litvinenko, who had been looking into the killing of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, told reporters last week that he fell ill on Nov. 1 following a meal at a sushi restaurant with an Italian contact who claimed to have details about the murder.

Alexander Goldfarb, who helped Litvinenko defect to Britain in 2000, said the former spy told him more details on Monday morning about the day he was poisoned during a telephone conversation from his hospital bed.

Goldfarb said all options should be explored, including whether the poison might have been sprinkled into Litvinenko's drink during a meeting at a central London hotel on Nov. 1 before he went to the sushi restaurant.

Litvinenko briefly met two men from Moscow — one of whom was a former KGB officer he knew — for tea at the hotel, Goldfarb said.

"I called Alexander in hospital ... he told me it is true, on that day, before meeting the Italian, he met with two Russians," Goldfarb said, adding that Litvinenko had not previously met the second man.

Litvinenko told police about the two men, he said.

Oleg Gordievsky, a former senior KGB agent who defected to Britain in the mid-1980s, alleged in an interview with The Times newspaper that those who tried to kill Litvinenko would have had to have obtained permission "from the top" for the operation.

Gordievsky alleged the attack was carried out by a former agent who was recruited from prison by the KGB's main successor agency, FSB, the newspaper reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed suggestions that Russian intelligence services were involved as "nothing but sheer nonsense."

Police said a specialist crime unit began an investigation Friday into how Litvinenko may have been poisoned. No arrests had been made, said a Scotland Yard spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.

Earlier on Monday, Goldfarb told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that the former agent was poisoned because of his opposition to the Russian regime.

"It's very difficult to imagine the president's ordered the killing, it's true, and nobody's saying that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin personally ordered it, though it's very likely," Goldfarb said.

Britain's Press Association identified the Italian contact he met at the restaurant as Mario Scaramella, an academic who has helped investigate KGB activity in Italy during the Cold War. Scaramella could not immediately be reached for comment.

Politkovskaya, who had written critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya, was gunned down Oct. 7 inside her Moscow apartment building. Her attackers have not been found.

A doctor treating Litvinenko told the BBC that tests showed he had been poisoned by thallium — a toxic metal found in rat poison.

Dr. John Henry, a clinical toxicologist who treated Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko when he was poisoned by dioxin during his 2004 presidential election campaign, told the BBC that thallium can cause damage to the nervous system and organ failure, and that just one gram can be lethal.

Kremlin critics claim poisoning — which is extremely hard to prove — is a common Soviet-era practice that seems to have reappeared since Putin, an ex-KGB officer, became president.

Litvinenko joined the KGB counterintelligence forces in 1988, and rose to the rank of colonel in the FSB. He began specializing in terrorism and organized crime in 1991, and was transferred to the FSB's most secretive department on criminal organizations in 1997.

He fled Russia and claimed asylum in Britain in November 2000.

[lochlan-2009]

Who here believes any spy organization from any country would ever admit to doing anything. What kind of spy organization would that be?

[consciousnes]

I thought someone said the "Cold War" was over.
When are the business men who run this world ever going to have enough money and power?
There will always be rich people and there will always be poor people, a simple matter of ambition and the way things happen. The only question is how can the people who make the decisions to start wars by making the funds and weapons available sleep at night? They may have their fancy homes, boats and airplanes, but just to actually get a good nights sleep knowing that they are causing millions of people's deaths each time they make a deal....... How can anyone sleep with that on their conscience?