Related: Poisoned former Russian spy
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Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko
at London's University College Hospital on 20 November 2006.(Xinhua/AFP
Photo)
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BEIJING,
Nov. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- The British police sought to investigate the death
of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former Russian KGB agent, said a British official
on Sunday.
"British policemen have gone as far as saying no more
than this is a suspicious death that they are investigating and they have ruled
out no option," said John Reid, the Home Secretary and Britain's most senior law
enforcement official.
He added that his concern was for those members of
the public who may have come into contact with Litvinenko.
"I think it's known that the particular nature of
these circumstances don't appear to have happened before. That's why we're doing
everything we can on the health side as well as the police side to get as much
information to people as we can," he said.
Litvinenko presumed that he was poisoned on Nov. 1 at a
sushi bar in west London where two Russians offered him information relating to
the Oct. 7 killing of Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya.
Litvinenko had been investigating the woman reporter's murder.
Litvinenko joined the Soviet spy agency KGB in 1988
and then became a colonel of its successor, the Russian Federal Security Service
(FSB). In 1998 he became an open critic of the FSB and was arrested several
times. He fled to Britain with his wife and son in November 2000 and was granted
asylum.
(Agencies)
300 tested for radiation traces after
ex-spy's death
BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- After investigating the
death of a former Russian spy, health authorities in Britain tested 300 people
for traces of radiation Sunday, who are also customers of restaurant and hotel
visited by radiation victim Alexander Litvinenko.
Litvinenko, 43, a former KGB agent died Thursday of heart
failure after falling gravely ill from what doctors said was poisoning by the
radioactive element polonium-210.
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