A SECOND Russian businessman who met murdered ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill is sick from radiation poisoning, local media quoted medical sources as saying yesterday.

The Italian academic who met Alexander Litvinenko on the day he was allegedly poisoned has been discharged from hospital, it was disclosed today.

Detectives in the UK investigating the death of ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko were tonight planning to fly to Moscow in their hunt for clues into the dissident’s poisoning, sources have confirmed.

An Italian academic feared to have been another victim of the Russian hit squad which killed ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko remains under close observation in hospital today.

A security expert’s positive test in London for a radioactive substance was not a public health threat in Italy, Italian officials said.

Radiation tests are continuing on the man who met ex Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko on the day he was allegedly poisoned.

An Italian security expert who was one of the last people to see poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko before he fell ill said today tests have cleared him of radioactive contamination.

A Russian man who met with Alexander Litvinenko on the day that the former KGB spy believed he was poisoned today said he had been questioned by British officials in Moscow, and again denied any involvement in his death.

THE illness of the Russian former security agent Alexander Litvinenko is unlikely to have been caused by thallium sulphate poisoning, the hospital doctors treating him said last night.

An Italian security expert today confirmed he met with a former Russian spy in London before the outspoken critic of the Kremlin was taken seriously ill with what British police and doctors suspect is poisoning by a toxic metal.

A former Russian security agent said to have been poisoned in London continued his fight for life in hospital today.