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ROME - An Italian academic who met former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he became ill from radiation poisoning is under police protection in London and undergoing medical tests, a legal source said on Tuesday.
Mario Scaramella, who has advised an Italian parliamentary commission on Soviet-era espionage, is being checked to find out if he too has been contaminated. Litvinenko died on Thursday.
"He went to London and is under British protection. He is undergoing medical tests to determine his possible contamination," said the Rome-based source, who asked not to be named.
Significant amounts of radioactive Polonium 210 were found in the body of Litvinenko, a former agent who became a fierce Kremlin critic and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his slow, agonising death. Moscow denies involvement.
Traces were also found at the London sushi restaurant where Litvinenko met Scaramella on November 1. Scaramella has said he showed Litvinenko emails from a mutual source warning their lives may be danger from St. Petersburg-based criminals.
The emails said the same criminals, possibly acting on behalf of Moscow, had killed prominent journalist Anna Politkovskaya last month.
Litvinenko had been investigating Politkovskaya's death. He had also published a book accusing Russian security services of carrying out Moscow apartment bombings in 1999 that were blamed on Chechen rebels and used by Putin as justification for war against the separatists.
- REUTERS
