Italy to tell Russia:"we want answers" on poisoning
04 Dec 2006 14:03:06 GMT Source: Reuters
(Adds D'Alema comments, background) By Nicola Scevola BELGRADE, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Italy's foreign minister said on Monday he would ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to assist British police investigating the poisoning of a former Russian spy and an Italian security consultant. "I think that it is also an opportunity, given that Putin has decided to receive me, to tell Russian authorities that we want answers," Massimo D'Alema told reporters in Belgrade. He is scheduled to meet Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. "It's clear that I will ask Russia to offer its full cooperation to the judiciary and to the British police forces above all." Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko died last month of poisoning with radioactive polonium 210, and accused Putin of ordering his death. The Kremlin denies any involvement. Mario Scaramella, an Italian contact of Litvinenko who had lunched with him in London on Nov. 1, was admitted to a London hospital after polonium was detected in his body, but has not so far fallen ill. He advised a former Italian parliamentary commission on Cold War-era KGB espionage. Nine British detectives might fly to Moscow as early as Monday, police in London said, to speak to witnesses who met Litvinenko before his death. The case has strained London's relations with Moscow and D'Alema said it also now involved Italy, because of Scaramella. Scaramella has said that he and Litvinenko may have both been targeted with a radioactive substance because of secrets they shared, but has not revealed what those secrets were. D'Alema said shedding light on what happened and identifying those responsible was "in the interests of Russia and other European nations". He declined to speculate who was to blame. "It's an incident that has many unsettling implications and questions that should be clarified. I would not feel right passing judgment," D'Alema said.
