U.K. Protecting Dead Spy's Lunch Companion

(CBS/AP)  An Italian security expert who met with a former KGB agent the day he fell ill with radiation poisoning was under British protection and being tested for contamination Tuesday, and officials ordered tests for eight people who exhibited possible symptoms.

Also, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday that police were determined to find out who was responsible by way of a thorough investigation. In a deathbed statement, Litvinenko blamed the Kremlin for his poisoning, which has cast a shadow over British-Russian relations.

Mario Scaramella has said that he met the ex-spy turned Kremlin critic, Alexander Litvinenko, at a London sushi restaurant on Nov. 1, the day Litvinenko became sick. He died Nov. 23.

Scaramella said he showed Litvinenko e-mails from a confidential source identifying the possible killers of a Russian investigative journalist and listing other potential targets for assassination — including himself and Litvinenko.

Blair said he would speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the case "at any time that is appropriate." Putin has strongly denied any Kremlin links to the poisoning.

CBS Radio News correspondent Larry Miller reports Blair said nothing political or diplomatic will stop the police investigation.

"I think people should know that there is no diplomatic or political barrier in the way of that investigation," Blair told reporters during a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. "It is obviously a very, very serious matter indeed. We are determined to find out what happened and who is responsible."

Moscow is important to Britain as an energy supplier and member of the Group of 8 industrialized nations, but many are critical of human rights abuses and unexplained deaths, including last month's slaying of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Scaramella said Tuesday he was being protected by a security team and would be tested for traces of polonium-210, the rare radioactive element found in Litvinenko's body. The isotope is deadly in tiny amounts if ingested or inhaled.

The Italian, an academic who helped investigate KGB activity in Italy during the Cold War, declined to say whether he would be questioned by police.

London police say they are investigating the Litvinenko case as a "suspicious death" rather than murder, although they have devoted a large anti-terrorist force to the inquiry.

Since Litvinenko's death, more than 1,100 people have called a health hotline over concerns they may be at risk from polonium poisoning. Of those, eight exhibited symptoms that health officials thought should be examined as a precaution, the Health Protection Agency said. The tests should take about a week.

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[kjgal]

bellaL
We shouldn't poke the least bit of fun at this story, it is very serious. But dang, I was thinking the very same thing!

[numina1]

...its not just this former spy. The journalist assassination. Remember too the Russian oil tycoon who was arrested on "tax evasion" and his company sold? But the only bidder was some mysterious entity who was the only one certified to place a bid for the company....

Putin must realize that a fundamental principal behind freedom: One cannot claim to be a nation of laws while those who are charged with enforcing the law are the law breakers. A nation cannot claim to uphold freedom while simultaneously silence those people who freely choose to speak out against evils...be it the corrupt russian traffic cops or the government itself. Intimidation and force are the tools of those who have plenty to hide: their incompetence or their lack of judgement. Period. Last post.

[numina1]

he was killed i think because he was about to reveal that Russia's Putin was involved in those residential bombings that were later blamed on the Chechnians....so he can be justified in launching an offensive.......

and to think we have relations with Russia...the increasing crackdown and use of assassinations as an acceptable form of intimidation to silence critics can only be harbingers of bad omens...we nip this here and now independent of economic ties or we risk letting it fester and grow until it is too late.

Our attention is focused elsewhere like Iraq and we forget that ignoring the individual wrongs brings with it gross wrongs later....

[bellal-2009]

THat one in the black turtleneck needs to find an unlikely safehaven, like hiding out in suburbia portraying a husband. I will volunteer my house as cover my small contribution to freedom.