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Defector 'poisoned by KGB' has 50/50 survival chance
19th November 2006
Scotland Yard is investigating the attempted murder of a top Russian defector poisoned by political enemies in London.
Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB colonel who fled the current Russian regime to claim asylum in Britain, is under armed police guard in hospital.
The former Russian security agent allegedly poisoned in London looks "like a ghost" in hospital, a friend said today.
Alexander Litvinenko has only a 50 per cent chance of surviving the next four weeks, said Alex Goldfarb, who brought him to Britain six years ago and has been visiting him in hospital.
Sources have confirmed that the Russian was taken suddenly and dangerously ill on November 1 while investigating the recent murder of dissident Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Mr Litvinenko was poisoned following a clandestine meeting with an associate at a sushi bar in London's Piccadilly.
The ex-KGB man was given documents which claimed to name Ms Politkovskaya's killers. According to the papers, she was murdered by four members of President Vladimir Putin's federal security service, known as the FSB. A source close to Mr Litvinenko claimed he had been the victim of a revenge attack by the increasingly hard-line Russian regime.
The source added: "He is convinced that he has been poisoned at the instigation of President Putin."
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19th November 2006
Scotland Yard is investigating the attempted murder of a top Russian defector poisoned by political enemies in London.
Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB colonel who fled the current Russian regime to claim asylum in Britain, is under armed police guard in hospital.
The former Russian security agent allegedly poisoned in London looks "like a ghost" in hospital, a friend said today.
Alexander Litvinenko has only a 50 per cent chance of surviving the next four weeks, said Alex Goldfarb, who brought him to Britain six years ago and has been visiting him in hospital.
Sources have confirmed that the Russian was taken suddenly and dangerously ill on November 1 while investigating the recent murder of dissident Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Mr Litvinenko was poisoned following a clandestine meeting with an associate at a sushi bar in London's Piccadilly.
The ex-KGB man was given documents which claimed to name Ms Politkovskaya's killers. According to the papers, she was murdered by four members of President Vladimir Putin's federal security service, known as the FSB. A source close to Mr Litvinenko claimed he had been the victim of a revenge attack by the increasingly hard-line Russian regime.
The source added: "He is convinced that he has been poisoned at the instigation of President Putin."
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