Mos News
Friday, November 24, 2006

Russia stood accused of being behind the death of former spy Alexander Litvinenko by a mysterious poisoning in what critics alleged was a Soviet-style sting by Moscow’s secret services, a charge the Kremlin denied, Agence France-Presse reports.

The 43-year-old Litvinenko, a former lieutenant-colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Services (FSB) the successor to the Soviet KGB died late Thursday night as doctors struggled to explain the cause of the rapid deterioration in his health.

Friends of the former spy, however, wasted no time in laying the blame squarely at the door of the Kremlin, with a former colonel in the KGB saying he was in “no doubt” that the Russian secret service was responsible for Litvinenko’s death. The former spy also told a friend that he wanted to survive the apparent poisoning “just to show them”, referring to the Kremlin, the friend told The Times in an article published Friday.

“The bastards got me ... But they won’t get everybody,” he whispered to Andrei Nekrasov, a friend and filmmaker, on Tuesday, the last day Litvinenko could communicate properly. The ex spy apparently also made a joke at his own expense, saying: “This is what it takes to prove one has been telling the truth.”

He was referring to allegations made in his book “Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within”, where Litvinenko said the secret service set up the 1999 Russian apartment block bombings, which prompted the second Chechen war and propelled the then little-known Vladimir Putin to power.

His condition had worsened on Thursday, doctors and friends said, as he suffered a heart attack overnight Wednesday, and was left fighting for his life.

His spokesman and friend Alexander Goldfarb told television news broadcasters on Thursday that his friend suffered an apparent cardiac arrest and a “catastrophic” fall in blood pressure. He had been moved to intensive care on Sunday evening.

Late on Thursday, a spokesman for the hospital where Litvinenko was staying announced that he had died. “We are sorry to announce that Alexander Litvinenko died at University College Hospital (UCH) at 9:21 (2121 GMT) on the 23rd of November 2006,” the spokesman said.

Litvinenko fled Russia and was granted asylum in Britain after accusing the FSB of plotting to kill the exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky. He recently became a British citizen.

Doctors earlier ruled out an initial theory that the heavy metal thallium was responsible, said radioactivity was “unlikely” and dismissed a report three unidentified objects had been found in his intestines.