British police to fly to Moscow in poison spy probe

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.

It also emerged today that anti-terror police from Scotland Yard have already taken the investigation to the USA where they are thought to have interviewed a key figure behind the Ukrainian “Orange Revolution” of 2004.

Mr Litvinenko, a fierce critic of president Vladimir Putin, died of radiation poisoning last month, convinced that he had been the victim of a Russian murder plot.

A second man has tested positive for the deadly radioactive substance polonium 210 which is believed to have killed Mr Litvinenko.

Doctors treating Italian academic Mario Scaramella said today that he continued to show no symptoms of poisoning.

But London’s University College Hospital said that further tests were being carried out on Mr Scaramella, who met Mr Litvinenko at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly on November 1, the day he fell ill.

With the spy’s death set to be raised with European interior ministers in Brussels tomorrow, Home Secretary John Reid said that the investigation was likely to “widen out” beyond Britain.

“The police will follow wherever this investigation leads inside or outside of Britain. That will continue over the next few days,” he told Sky News.

“The police will talk to anybody they need to inside this country or outside this country.”

Shadow home secretary David Davis said there should be no “diplomatic limit” to the investigation.

Police sources confirmed that a team of detectives would be going to Moscow within days, although the situation was described as “too fluid” to say for certain whether the officers would be flying out as soon as tomorrow.

Among those they may want to interview is former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi - whose visit to Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium on the day he met Mr Litvinenko is thought to be behind a radiation search at the football ground.

According to the Sunday Times, Mr Lugovoi has admitted that he had also been contaminated with polonium but insists that he had been “framed”.

The claims suggests that it may have been his movements, rather than those of Alexander Litvinenko, which sparked many of the radiation alerts in London last week.

He told the newspaper that he had stayed at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel, flown on BA planes and – like Mr Litvinenko – visited the Mayfair offices of the security firm Erinys and eaten at the sushi bar.

“We suspect that someone was trying to frame us,” he is quoted as saying.

“Someone passed the stuff on to us ... so as to point the finger at us and distract the police.”

Also among those police may want to see is former intelligence officer Mikhail Trepashkin, who is currently in jail in Russia for revealing secret information.

In letters smuggled out of Russia last week Mr Trepashkin claimed that a secret hit squad had been set up to target Mr Litvinenko and others in 2002 and offered himself as a witness in the British investigation.

Mr Litvinenko’s friend Alex Goldfarb said today that he was anxious that British detectives would be able to speak to Mr Trepashkin.

“If they don’t go to see him I am afraid that we will never hear of Mr Trepashkin again because when the dust settles they will break his neck,” said.

Scotland Yard sources also revealed that the investigation took police to Washington last week.

It is thought that the trip was to interview ex-KGB officer Yuri Shvets, a friend of Mr Litvinenko who had played a key-behind-the-scenes role in bringing about the Orange Revolution which swept Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko to power.

Reports said that the interview focused on a dossier, possessed by Mr Litvinenko, containing revelations on the highly-controversial break-up of the Russian oil giant Yukos, formerly owned by billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

With Khodorkovsky languishing in a Siberian jail for tax offences and other directors fleeing the country, the company’s assets were snapped up by Kremlin-backed company in a state-run auction.

Speaking from New York, Mr Goldfarb confirmed that he was aware of such a dossier which, he said, Mr Litvinenko had passed on to former Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin, who has left Russia for Israel.

He also confirmed that Mr Shvets had been expecting to be interviewed by British police and the FBI last week.

He also paid tribute to Mr Litvinenko’s wife Marina, who has herself tested positive for a low level of radiation.

“She is a very strong woman, I am actually surprised how well she has coped,” he said.

Mrs Litvinenko and her son 12-year-old Anatole, were joined by close friends including Mr Berezovsky and Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev for an emotional meal on Friday night to mark the ninth day since the spy’s death.

Within the Russian Orthodox tradition the ninth day after a death is a significant milestone.