Police Arrest Italian In Poisoned Spy Case

Police on Sunday arrested an Italian man who met with a former Russian spy the day the Russian fell ill from poisoning, news agencies reported.

Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples after returning from London, the ANSA and Apcom agencies reported. Rome prosecutors have accused Scaramella of violating secrets, arms trafficking and slander, the agencies reported.

No one answered the phone at Naples police headquarters on Sunday. Scaramella's cell phone was off, and there was no answer at his father's home in Naples. There also was no answer at his lawyer's office.

Scaramella met with Alexander Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on Nov. 1, the day the former KGB agent fell ill. Litvinenko died of poisoning from radioactive polonium-210 on Nov. 23.

On his deathbed, Litvinenko blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for involvement in his poisoning — an allegation that the Kremlin denied.

Scaramella also was hospitalized for several days in London and he said doctors told him he had received five times the lethal dose of polonium-210, although he showed no symptoms. He left the hospital a few days later.

The same day that Litvinenko met with Scaramella, the Russian met with Andrei Lugovoi, also an ex-Soviet agent; Dmitry Kovtun, a Russian businessman; and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, head of a private Russian security firm, in the bar at London's Millennium Hotel.

All three men have denied involvement in the ex-spy's death.

Scaramella has been gathering information for Italian Sen. Paolo Guzzanti — the former chair of a parliamentary commission that examined cases of past KGB infiltration in Italy.