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

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.