Shortly before his death, poisoned former Russian spy named alleged Russian agent in London, Viktor Kirov, as harrassing him:

Alexander Litvinenko, who died after mysteriously absorbing polonium210, a rare and highly toxic radioactive material, said in his last full interview from hospital that he knew he was an “active case” for Russian intelligence.

He named the agent in charge of monitoring him as “Viktor Kirov”. A man called Anatoly V Kirov worked at the Russian embassy in London, where he was listed as a diplomat, until late last year.

He is believed to have left the diplomatic service in October 2005 and returned to Russia. But Litvinenko claimed just days before he died that Kirov was an intelligence agent who continued to target him.

Yesterday, antiterrorist squad police requested that The Sunday Times hand over a tape of the interview in which Litvinenko named Kirov. Detectives from Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorist Command SO15 are on standby, if required, to travel to Moscow to interview people involved in the case.

The Guardian reports:

Privately, however, there is deep scepticism in Whitehall about whether the Putin administration would be willing to risk a crisis in British-Russian relations by directly authorising an assassination of a British citizen on British soil, particularly using a method that might involve other Britons being contaminated. The two countries are currently engaged in delicate negotiations over energy security.

Litvinenko apparently obtained UK citizenship in the past month.

More on the case from David Wise.

Posted by Laura at November 25, 2006 11:48 PM