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Spy's wife too suffers from radiation

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: The dead Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko's wife, Marina, has also tested positive for Polonium-210, the radioactive substance that killed her husband.

However, the amount was "not significant enough to result in any illness in the short term,'' said the Health Protection Agency, which is monitoring cases of suspected radiation.

She is the second person to have tested positive since Litvinenko's death from Polonium poisoning on November 23. On Friday, Mario Scaramella, a self-styled Italian academic who met Litvinenko on November 1, was found to have been exposed to significant radiation. He is now being treated here.

Litvinenko met Mr. Scaramella at a sushi bar here in connection with their campaign against the Russian Government, and the same evening fell fatally sick. The Italian media cast doubts about Mr. Scaramella's academic credentials and his claims that he and Litvinenko were on a Kremlin-sponsored "hit list''.

Mr. Scaramella is being investigated in Italy for his alleged involvement in arms trafficking and for breaching secrecy rules of a parliamentary commission set up by the former Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, to investigate the activities of KGB in Italy during the Cold War. His claim that he has academic links with many leading universities around the world, including a university in Tamil Nadu, has been questioned.

A close friend of Litvinenko has suggested that he had converted to Islam.

"He was read to from the Koran the day before he died and told his wife that he wanted to be buried in accordance with Muslim tradition,'' Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen leader and neighbour of Litvinenko said.

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