Scotland Yard probes Russian spy poisoning claim

Police in Britain confirmed Saturday they are investigating the suspected poisoning of a Russian former spy who has accused his former colleagues of involvement in terrorism and assassinations.

Several British newspapers reported Col. Alexander Litvinenko, 43, has been in hospital since Nov. 1 with symptoms of near-fatal poisoning.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said police detectives were trying to identify what is in his system and who put it there.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported Litvinenko has suffered damage to his kidneys and bone marrow, is vomiting regularly and has lost his hair.

The newspaper said it interviewed him at his bedside in a London hospital, where he had been admitted under a false name. It said he fell ill after having a meal with an Italian man who claimed to have information on the killing of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Litvinenko joined the KGB, the spy agency of the former Soviet Union, and rose to the rank of colonel in its successor, the Federal Security Service, or FSB.

He fled Russia and claimed asylum in Britain in November 2000, two years after publicly accusing his FSB superiors of ordering him to kill tycoon Boris Berezovsky, at the time a powerful Kremlin insider.

He also has accused FSB agents of co-ordinating 1999 apartment-house bombings that killed more than 300 people in Russia and sparked the second war in Chechnya.

Litvinenko was jailed in Russia in 1999 on charges of abusing his office. He was eventually acquitted and then fled to Britain.

In 1978, Bulgarian dissident Georgy Markov was murdered in London by an assailant using a poison-tipped umbrella.Western intelligence agencies believe Bulgaria's then-communist government ordered the killing but an official investigation into the case ended in 2000 without shedding any light on the incident.