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LONDON - British police said today they were now treating the death of poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko as murder.
"Detectives investigating the death of Alexander Litvinenko have reached the stage where it is felt appropriate to treat it as an allegation of murder," London police said in a statement.
Britain's embassy in Moscow also announced small traces of radiation had been found on its premises, but said they were too small to be harmful and declined to say if the radiation was polonium 210 -- the poison found in Litvinenko's body.
Litvinenko, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, began complaining of feeling ill on November 1. He died in London three weeks later from radiation poisoning.
Litvinenko accused Putin of ordering his assassination. Russia denies any involvement but the case has created diplomatic tensions between Moscow and London.
British police, which sent a team out to Moscow to question witnesses who met Litvinenko in London, said: "Detectives in this case are keeping an open mind and methodically following the evidence."
"It is important to stress that we have reached no conclusions as to the means employed, the motive or the identity of those who might be responsible for Mr Litvinenko's death," the statement added.
In Moscow, British police and investigators from Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika's office on Wednesday questioned Dmitry Kovtun, one of at least two Russians who met the ex-spy the day he fell ill.
"One Russian citizen who was named in the inquiry of the British side was questioned," the Prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Investigators met Kovtun in the same hospital where ex-KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy, a high-profile figure in the affair, was being treated, apparently for radiation poisoning.
While admitting to meeting Litvinenko in a London hotel on Nov. 1, Lugovoy has denied any involvement in the ex-KGB spy's death.
The small group of British detectives who arrived in Moscow on Monday were virtually relegated to the role of observers by chief prosecutor Chaika who has publicly insisted Russian authorities will direct interviews on Russian soil.
An Italian contact of Litvinenko was on Wednesday discharged from a London hospital which had been monitoring him for radiation poisoning.
Mario Scaramella had been admitted to hospital last Friday after radioactive polonium 210, the same poison that killed Litvinenko, was detected in his body.
Speaking to Reuters after being discharged from University College Hospital, Scaramella said he felt well.
"I'm fine. I'm sure of that. What I'm waiting for is the official analysis on my urine sample," Scaramella said.
- REUTERS
