A former Russian spy who is fighting for his life in a British hospital after a suspected poison attack may have been the target of a Moscow-led plot, a close confidant said today.
Doctors say exiled agent Alexander Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has only a fifty-fifty chance of surviving.
John Henry, a clinical toxicologist, said there was "no doubt" he had been poisoned by thallium. He described it as a "little bit like table salt" and said even a small amount could kill: "It is tasteless, colourless, odourless. It takes about a gram . . . to kill you."
A Kremlin spokesman dismissed allegations that exiled agent Alexander Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was the victim of an assassination attempt by Russian security services.
British police are investigating after Litvinenko, a former colonel in Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), successor to the KGB, said he fell ill after meeting a contact while probing the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
The hospital said Litvinenko's condition had deteriorated slightly overnight and he had been transferred to intensive care.
In a case with echoes of a classic Cold War spy tale, Alexander Goldfarb, who helped Litvinenko defect to Britain six years ago, claimed the former spy was the victim of a plot directed from the heart of the Russian government.
"This is a Kremlin-backed operation of Russian intelligence services - whether it goes to the top of the Kremlin or to the top of the Russian secret service I cannot say," said Goldfarb, himself a Russian dissident who now has US citizenship.
In Moscow, deputy Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "There is no need to comment on statements that are pure nonsense." An FSB spokesman declined comment and the Russian embassy in London described Litvinenko's case as an "accident".
Litvinenko, now a British citizen, co-authored a book in 2002 entitled "Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within", in which he alleged FSB agents co-ordinated apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people in 1999.
The bombings, which authorities blamed on Chechen rebels, led to a shift in public opinion in Russia, affording Putin popular backing for his decision to move troops into Chechnya.
London police said they were investigating "a suspected deliberate poisoning of a 41-year-old man in London".