Russian prosecutors ready to help UK investigate ex-spy's death
28/11/2006 16:56 MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's top prosecutors said Tuesday they are ready to help Scotland Yard investigate the circumstances of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko's death in London.
Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, died Thursday in a London hospital with symptoms of radioactive poisoning. British health officials said Friday a large dose of polonium-210, a toxic uranium by-product, had been found in his body.
"The Prosecutor General's Office is ready to use all its resources to help our British colleagues," a spokesman for the office said, adding that Britain has not yet made any requests for assistance.
After Litvinenko died, the press circulated a statement allegedly written by him, in which he accused the Kremlin of orchestrating his death. Moscow has dismissed the allegation as absurd.
Traces of radiation have been detected in the Itsu sushi bar, where the Russian intelligence defector dined on November 1, in the Millennium hotel in central London which Litvinenko visited the same day, and in his apartment in the north of the capital.
British police said Tuesday they have also found traces of Po-210 radiation in an office building of Litvinenko's associate, fugitive Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky.
Berezovsky, a billionaire with British citizenship wanted in Russia for fraud, whose office is located at 7 Down Street, Mayfair, declined to comment on the radiation discovery.
Nikolai Kovalev, former head of the KGB's successor, the FSB, said the discovery of radiation in Berezovsky's office could imply his involvement in Litvinenko's death.
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