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British detectives have questioned a Russian businessman who entertained Alexander Litvinenko in a London hotel on the day the former spy fell ill. At the same time Scotland Yard confirmed that the investigation into Litvinenko’s death by radiation poisoning had become a murder inquiry. Police have been following the trail across London left by Dimitri Kovtun and his close friend, Andrei Lugovoy. It includes a number of locations where polonium-210 has been found. Mr Kovtun was interviewed by Russian prosecutors yesterday in the presence of the British detectives, who arrived in Moscow on Monday. He and and Mr Lugovoy were...

Radiation has been found at the British Embassy in Moscow, it emerged yesterday. On Monday, officials said a room there would be tested as a precaution after former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi went there to deny involvement in poisoning Alexander Litvinenko. Mr Lugovoi and another Russian businessman reportedly met former spy Mr Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, on November 1, the day he was apparently poisoned. A spokesman said: 'A team of experts have concluded a precautionary check of the British Embassy. 'They have found no danger to public health. Small traces of radiation were found...

British investigators are now treating the poisoning death of former Federal Security Service agent Alexander Litvinenko as murder. "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," Scotland Yard said in a statement.

Was ex-spy trying to sell dirty bomb? The radiation spy scandal took a sensational twist last night with the revelation that KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko had converted to Islam before he died. Scotland Yard detectives are now trying to discover if he had any secret links with Islamic extremist terror groups. Their biggest fear is that the former Soviet spy, who died of polonium-210 poisoning in a London hospital, may have been helping Al Qaeda terrorists or other extremist groups get hold of radioactive material to be used in a devastating “dirty” atom bomb. The news comes on top of...

MOSCOW, December 6, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- A team of British investigators today is continuing work on the case of Aleksandr Litvinenko. The former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer died in London last month from poisoning by the rare radioactive isotope polonium-210. Since then, British authorities have literally followed the polonium trail to more than a dozen locations in London, three British Airways jets, and a handful of potential suspects in Moscow.

Moscow refuses to extradite anyone tied to the death of former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London even if possible suspects are unearthed by a team of British investigators now in Russia, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said Tuesday. "If they want to arrest them, it would be impossible," Chaika said at a news conference, referring to the investigators. "They are Russian citizens, and the Russian Constitution makes that impossible." The British investigators, from Scotland Yard, arrived in Moscow late Monday as part of the inquiry into the Nov. 23 poisoning death of Litvinenko, who had been a Federal Security Service...

Radioactive traces at Arsenal stadium December 6, 2006 - 12:11PM British investigators have found minute traces of polonium 210, the radioactive isotope that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, at a London soccer stadium. The traces were found at the stadium of English Premier League club Arsenal. "Minute quantities [of polonium] were found at barely detectable levels at localised areas," said Health Protection Agency spokeswoman Katherine Lewis. "There is no risk to public health." British police are in Moscow investigating Litvinenko's death in a case that has strained ties between Britain and Russia since the exiled former spy on his...

LONDON: British intelligence services are convinced that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) was behind the poisoning of former spy Alexander Litvinenko. The FSB orchestrated a "highly sophisticated plot"and was likely to have used some of its former agents to carry out the operation on the streets of London, the Times said on Tuesday. "We know how the FSB operates abroad and, based on the circumstances behind the death of Litvinenko, the FSB has to be the prime suspect,"a source said. The involvement of a former FSB officer made it easier to lure Litvinenko to meetings at various locations and...

Russia named its price yesterday for providing help in the investigation into the death by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. It demanded that Britain hand over the enemies of President Putin who have been given asylum in London.The ultimatum came as Russian officials imposed strict limits on how Scotland Yard detectives will be allowed to operate as they began their investigation in Moscow. The strict conditions threatened to deepen the diplomatic rift between Moscow and London caused by the death last month by radioactive polonium-210 poisoning of Litvinenko. John Reid, the Home Secretary, pledged this week that no diplomatic obstacles would...

PRAGUE, December 5, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- A team of British investigators has begun work in Moscow on the case of poisoned former Russian security officer Aleksandr Litvinenko. The investigators are in Moscow to question several Russians who met with Litvinenko in London, where he died after being poisoned with a radioactive isotope, polonium-210. It remains unclear if Litvinenko was intentionally poisoned. Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the London metropolitan police service, is not expected to comment while the investigation is under way. Religious Conversion Litvinenko's father, Valter, told RFE/RL's Russian Service his son converted to Islam shortly before his death...

Russia's spy agency vowed that former agent Alexander Litvinenko would be tracked down and killed just like renegade communist Leon Trotsky was murdered in Mexico more than 60 years ago, a colleague disclosed yesterday.

Intelligence services in Britain are convinced that the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko was authorised by the Russian Federal Security Service. Security sources have told The Times that the FSB orchestrated a “highly sophisticated plot” and was likely to have used some of its former agents to carry out the operation on the streets of London. “We know how the FSB operates abroad and, based on the circumstances behind the death of Mr Litvinenko, the FSB has to be the prime suspect,” a source said yesterday. The involvement of a former FSB officer made it easier to lure Mr Litvinenko to...

All Aglow THE trail of clues in the mysterious death of Alexander V. Litvinenko may lead to Moscow, as the former spy claimed on his deathbed. But solving the nuclear whodunit may prove harder than Scotland Yard and many scientists at first anticipated. The complicating factor is the relative ubiquity of polonium 210, the highly radioactive substance found in Mr. Litvinenko’s body and now in high levels in the body of an Italian associate, who has been hospitalized in London. Experts initially called it quite rare, with some claiming that only the Kremlin had the wherewithal to administer a lethal...

Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian intelligence agent poisoned in London, is to be buried according to Muslim tradition after converting to Islam on his deathbed. The spy's father, Walter Litvinenko, said in an interview published today that his son - who was born an Orthodox Christian but had close links to Islamist rebels in Chechnya - made the request as he lay dying in University College Hospital. "He said ’I want to be buried according to Muslim tradition’," Mr Litvinenko told Moscow's Kommersant daily. "I said, ’Well son, as you wish. We already have one Muslim in our family -...

LONDON - Britain's senior law enforcement official said Sunday an inquiry into the death of a former KGB agent had expanded overseas, and a U.S.-based friend of the former agent said he told police the name of the person he believes orchestrated the poisoning. Yuri Shvets said had known the poisoned ex-spy, Alexander Litvinenko, since 2002 and spoke with him on Nov. 23, the day Litvinenko died following his exposure to a rare radioactive element, polonium-210. "The truth is, we have an act of international terrorism on our hands. I happen to believe I know who is behind the death...

LONDON – Reports that KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko converted to Islam before his mysterious poisoning with radioactive polonium 210 is raising suspicions that he may have been involved in a plot to smuggle the deadly substance to terrorist groups willing to pay millions even for a gram, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is reporting today. Scotland Yard detectives are now trying to discover if Litvinenko had any secret links with Islamic extremist terror groups, the London Sunday Express is reporting. Their biggest fear, the paper reports, is that Litvinenko, who died of polonium-210 poisoning in a London hospital, may have been...

LONDON, England (AP) -- An inquiry into the death of a poisoned ex-KGB spy was expanding outside Britain, the country's senior law and order official said Sunday, as investigators visited Washington and prepared to travel to Moscow. A potential witness in the investigation into the death of former Russian agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko had been interviewed in the United States and a team was ready to leave London for Russia within days, a police official said.

Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky has never made any secret of his loathing for President Vladimir Putin, but in an interview in his London exile the controversial tycoon went one step further with a vow to mount a coup. "President Putin violates the constitution and any violent action on the opposition's part is justified today, and that includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working at," the oligarch, looking vibrant despite five years in self-imposed exile, told AFP at his Piccadilly office. For the past 18 months, "we have been preparing to take power by force in...

The Observer has obtained remarkable testimony from a Russian academic, Julia Svetlichnaja, who met Litvinenko earlier this year and received more than 100 emails from him. ... He had asked Svetlichnaja, who is based in London, to enter into a business deal with him and 'make money'. We can also reveal that Scotland Yard officers involved in the investigation travelled to Washington to interview a former KGB agent, Yuri Shvets, who said he had vital information. He was a contact of Mario Scaramella, the Italian security consultant being treated at London's University College Hospital after having been found to have...

THE Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has expressed his anger at Britain’s failure to gag Alexander Litvinenko in the final hours of his life, the cabinet has been told.Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, told ministers that the Russian government had “taken exception” to the poisoned former spy’s deathbed letter accusing the Putin regime of murdering him. This weekend a potential suspect — Andrei Lugovoi — admitted he had been contaminated with the radioactive poison polonium-210 but insisted: “I’ve been framed.” Beckett, who spoke to her Russian counterpart before Thursday’s cabinet meeting, said the Russians had “seemingly failed to understand” that Litvinenko...