WORLD / Europe
Poisoned spy blames Putin for death
(AP)
Updated: 2006-11-25 08:57
LONDON - A rare radioactive substance killed an ex-KGB spy turned Kremlin
critic, the British government said Friday. In a dramatic statement
written before he died, the man called Russian President Vladimir Putin
"barbaric and ruthless" and blamed him personally for the poisoning.
British police officer cordons off the pavement area in front of a closed
sushi food bar, which is believed to be where former Russian spy
Alexander Litvinenko had lunch with Italian academic Mario Scaramella,
before he fell sick, in central London's Piccadilly, Friday Nov. 24,
2006. [AP]
Putin, in Finland, offered his condolences for the death of Alexander
Litvinenko and denied any involvement. He called the release of the
deathbed statement a "political provocation" by his opponents.
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Litvinenko died late Thursday at a London hospital after spending days in
intensive care as doctors puzzled over what was causing his organs to
fail and attacking his bone marrow and destroying his immune system.
Britain's Health Protection Agency said Friday that the radioactive
element polonium-210 had been found in his urine, and the police said
traces of radiation were found at Litvinenko's home and a ritzy hotel bar
and sushi restaurant he visited on the day he became ill.
Police said they were treating the case as an "unexplained death" - but
not yet as a murder.
The 43-year-old Litvinenko, who fiercely criticized Putin's government
from his refuge in London since 2000, told police he believed he was
poisoned Nov. 1 while investigating the October slaying of Russian
journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of Putin.
Litvinenko's statement, read by his friend Alex Goldfarb to reporters
outside the hospital, put the blame for his death squarely on Putin.
He accused Putin of having "no respect for life, liberty or any civilized
value."
"You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You
have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile
critics have claimed," the statement said.
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