Poisoned ex-spy accuses Putin from beyond grave

[Dreamer128]

The former Dutch ambassador to Russia died yesterday. After mentioning that he read in a magazine that Putins breath smells funny, he was accidentely run over by a Russian tank while having lunch in his suite on the fourth floor of the Hilton...

By Peter Graff

LONDON (Reuters) - A former KGB spy accused Vladimir Putin of his murder on Friday in a statement read out after his death, which British health officials said had been caused by a rare radioactive substance found in his body.

The Russian president brushed off the charge as "political provocation", but London said it had raised the "serious matter" of Alexander Litvinenko's death with Moscow and asked it to give British police any information it had.

Britain's top-level cabinet team, know as COBRA, which gathers for civil emergencies, met three times to discuss Litvinenko's death, a sign of escalating worry over the affair.

British health officials said a rare radioactive isotope, polonium 210, had been discovered in the body of the 43-year-old Kremlin critic who died overnight in a London hospital.

"You may succeed in silencing one man. But a howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life," Litvinenko said in a statement read out by friends outside the hospital where he died.

"May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people."

Police were trying to work out how the radioactive poison entered the body of Litvinenko who wasted away over three weeks, losing all his hair.

Police said traces of Polonium 210 had been found at a sushi bar where Litvinenko met an Italian academic, a hotel where he met another former Russian agent, both on the day he fell ill, and at his north London home.

"MAJOR DOSE"

"We know he had a major dose," Health Protection Agency chief Pat Troop said.

Police were seen carrying metal boxes away from the sushi restaurant in central London.

"My son died yesterday. He was killed by a little tiny nuclear bomb," Litvinenko's weeping father Walter said.

Dr Andrea Sella, lecturer in chemistry at University College London, told Reuters polonium 210 was one of the rarest substances on the planet and few could obtain it.

"This is not some random killing. This is not a tool chosen by a group of amateurs. These people had some serious resources behind them," he said.

The dead man's allegation of what would amount to the first Kremlin assassination carried out in the West since the Cold War dogged Putin at an European Union summit in Helsinki. Putin said there was no evidence implicating the Kremlin.

"It is a great pity that even something as tragic as a man's death is being used for political provocation," Putin said. "I hope the British authorities would not contribute to instigating political scandals. It has nothing to do with reality."

Litvinenko, who became a British citizen last month, was one of a group of Putin opponents who have clustered in London, including billionaire Boris Berezovsky and Chechen separatists, frequently attracting Moscow's scorn.

A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said it had discussed the affair with the Russian ambassador in London.

"The ambassador was asked to convey to the authorities in Moscow to provide any information they might have that would assist the police with their inquiries," she said.

A Russian ex-spy came forward in Moscow to acknowledge that he was the man who met Litvinenko at a London hotel with another Russian businessman the day he suddenly fell ill.

The man, Andrei Lugovoy, said in a statement they had met to discuss a business project at Litvinenko's request and he had nothing to do with the former spy's death.

British anti-terrorism police investigating the case said officers could go to Russia to talk to him.

European countries depend on Putin's Russia for natural gas and have big investments in oil companies there. Putin has been an ally of the West against Islamic extremism since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

But relations have been strained in recent years over what Western governments call Moscow's slide toward authoritarianism.

Litvinenko had been investigating the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, also a vocal critic of Putin, who was gunned down at the Moscow flat last month.

(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft, Deborah Haynes, Michael Holden, Jeremy Lovell, Patricia Reaney and Sophie Walker in London, Christian Lowe in Helsinki and Richard Balmforth in Moscow)

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

[johnny]

Pffft... as if anyone would be willing to act against Putin, and start the cold war all over again. So he eliminated a pain the ass....it's Russia, business as usual.