U.K. Police Treating Spy Death As Murder

Identity Of Those Responsible Or Methods Used Still Not Clear, Says Scotland Yard

(AP)  Scotland Yard said Wednesday it is treating the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko as murder.

The announcement came nearly two weeks after Litvinenko died in a London hospital; the rare radioactive substance polonium-210 was found in his body. Scotland Yard detectives are in Moscow as part of the widening investigation into his death.

"Detectives ... have reached the stage where it is felt appropriate to treat it as an allegation of murder," the Metropolitan Police said. "It is important to stress that we have reached no conclusions as to the means employed, the motive or the identity of those who might be responsible for Mr. Litvinenko's death."

Earlier Wednesday, Mario Scaramella, the Italian security expert who met with Litvinenko on Nov. 1, the day the former agent fell ill, was released from a London hospital after showing no signs of radiation poisoning.

Scaramella was in good health, University College Hospital spokesman Ian Lloyd said. He was hospitalized after testing positive for polonium-210.

A British official also said faint levels of the same element had been found at two locations at London's Emirates Stadium, where a key figure in the investigation, former Russian agent Andrei Lugovoi, attended a soccer match Nov. 1.

The radiation was "barely detectable" and posed no public health risk, said Katherine Lewis, spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency.

Traces also were found at the British Embassy in Moscow, the Foreign Office said. Officials said the level was low and posed no risk to health.

The health agency has been tracking a number of sites found to be contaminated with polonium-210, including a sushi bar and a hotel Litvinenko visited Nov. 1. He died in a London hospital on Nov. 23.

The restaurant, Itsu Sushi, said Wednesday that it would reopen in the new year. It said all its staff had been given a clean bill of health.

Lugovoi, who is hospitalized in Moscow for tests for possible radiation contamination, attended a match at Emirates Stadium between CSKA Moscow and Arsenal on Nov. 1, the same day he met Litvinenko.

A former KGB officer, Lugovoi told Ekho Moskvy radio in Moscow that he had known Litvinenko for a decade, dating back to Lugovoi's tenure as head of security for ORT television, which was controlled at the time by tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who now lives in London.

He said Litvinenko had contacted him from London about a year ago with some business-related proposals, and that they had met intermittently in London since then.

One of Lugovoi's business associates, Vyacheslav Sokolenko, said British investigators were due to meet with Lugovoi on Wednesday. But ITAR-Tass quoted a lawyer for Lugovoi, Andrei Romashov, as saying the meeting with Scotland Yard detectives would take place Thursday or Friday.

"Representatives of law enforcement agencies have not notified us of a date or time," Romashov was quoted as saying.

ABC News reported that British detectives had identified Lugovoi as a prime suspect in Litvinenko's poisoning. The report cited an unidentified senior British official.

British police have publicly named Lugovoi only as a witness. A British government official, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said Lugovoi was "one of many people investigators are looking to question, but I wouldn't call him a suspect at this point."

"We're also looking at the possibility there were criminal gangs involved," he said. "I think the investigation will take a very long time but I doubt any one person will be named or implicated in the end."

Lugovoi told the ITAR-Tass news agency that he was undergoing tests for possible radiation contamination, and that the results would be ready in a few days. He said he was prepared to answer all the British investigators' questions.

"I intend to fully satisfy their interest and am waiting for an invitation from the law enforcement organs," he was quoted as saying.

"Once I give all the necessary testimony to the law enforcement organs, I intend to publicly put an end to (speculation) about my supposed involvement in this story that has caused such a stir," he said.

Lugovoi traveled to London three times in the month before Litvinenko's death and met with Litvinenko four times, according to Russian media.

Litvinenko's funeral is expected to take place this week.

His father, Walter, told Radio Liberty that his son had converted and wished to receive a Muslim burial. "He told me about his decision two days before he died. He said, 'Papa, I have to talk to you about something serious. I've become a Muslim."'

An ally of Litvinenko said the ex-spy converted to Islam on his deathbed.

"He told me that he wanted to convert to Islam literally in his first days in the hospital," said Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev.

"I did not pay a lot of attention to this," Zakayev told Radio Liberty, "but he returned to the theme again and again."

Zakayev said that on Nov. 22, Litvinenko was visited in hospital by an imam, who read a Quranic verse traditionally said over the dying.

Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb confirmed an imam visited the hospital, "when he was heavily sedated and on the verge of death."

He said he did not know whether his friend had converted.

"He was basically a nonreligious person as long as I knew him," Goldfarb said.

I am so sick of this article, CBS please make it go away...it's real old news that no one really cares about

[ukpatriot_]

Oh no sandycat another misguided fool. the US is ridiculed because it is an imperialist state that claims it's a democracy and thinks it rules the world, it has never won a war it has entered in to, yet it claims to have won them all, it has never been asked to fight them it just sticks it's nose in ruins everything then hands the offended country the bill for it's services. the united nations voted to stay out of Iraq but the US couldn't resist stealing the oil. Voting for a clown for a president that can't even string a coherent sentence together does kinda make it's citizens look stupid, and is quite clearly corrupt to the point of 911.

[sandycat2]

UKpatriot, Try being an American and see how like it. Americans get rediculed from around the world. People in the world think the US is theirs. They think the US should give them money, jobs, and a military when fighting needs to be done. And for this Americans get to listen to how stupid we Americans are, how fat we are, how greedy we are. Personally, I'm sick of you all.

[ukpatriot_]

oh and your an expert are you? I am fed up with foreigners commenting on England in derogatory fashion, I will be happy if we ban all foreigners from our soil.

[agnim]

All this is a farce, as it can only be.

The british investigators are 'meeting' with no one.

The Russians are questioning their own people (as it should be) and the brits are mere SPECTATORS! LOL