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LONDON - A British minister today condemned "murky murders" clouding President Vladimir Putin's Russia and media reports said police would go to Moscow and Rome to probe the radiation death in London of a former KGB spy.
Northern Ireland minister Peter Hain was speaking three days after former Russian spy and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko died in hospital, having blamed his mysterious poisoning on Putin. The Russian president has dismissed the accusation.
Hain, whose government has asked Moscow for any information that might help the British police inquiry, criticised "huge attacks" on individual freedoms and democracy in Russia.
"The promise that President Putin brought to Russia when he came to power has been clouded by what has happened since, including some extremely murky murders," he told BBC television.
"His success in binding a disintegrating nation together... must be balanced against the fact that there have been huge attacks on individual liberty and on democracy and it's important that he retakes the democratic view," he added.
Officials were considering whether to conduct a post mortem on Litvinenko, a Russian dissident who became a British citizen last month, because of the presence of a rare radioactive isotope in his body.
Litvinenko died on Thursday after a three-week illness that saw his hair fall out, his body waste away and his organs fail.
Home Secretary John Reid said the radioactive substance which killed Litvinenko did not pose a risk to others.
"In terms of the type of material used, this case is pretty unique. I have no indication that there is a widespread threat here," he told Sky television.
Litvinenko, in a statement read out after his death, accused Putin of assassination. Putin said the death was being used for "political provocation".
Last month campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya, one of Putin's fiercest critics, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment block on the president's birthday.
Reports in British newspapers and television said detectives wanted to question two Russians and an Italian professor who lunched with Litvinenko at the same Japanese restaurant in London two weeks apart and have since returned home.
Police have been studying security camera footage of the London locations -- a hotel and a sushi restaurant -- where Litvinenko met contacts a day before falling ill.
Traces of Polonium 210 were found in both places as well as at Litvinenko's home and health officials have offered tests to members of the public who may have visited the locations.
"We have completed our forensic examination at the sushi restaurant visited by Litvinenko and will arrange for it to be decontaminated," a police spokesman said.
"We are still working at Litvinenko's home and the hotel he visited."
Media speculated that British diplomats would tread softly, given Britain's growing dependence on Russian energy exports.
In his deathbed statement Litvinenko told Putin: "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."
Analysts were divided over whether the Russian president was involved.
Some suggested the death was part of a plot by Russian oligarchs and dissidents to discredit the Kremlin, and others that rogue elements of the KGB may have been to blame.
"Those rogue people are... the direct responsibility of Mr Putin. They are the result of his ideology of force and this nationalism which is now being injected in the Russian people," said Andrei Nekrasov, filmmaker and friend of Litvinenko.
- REUTERS
