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Spy 'hit list' source worried
07/12/2006 09:51 - (SA)
London - The man who provided a "hit list" that was shown to former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill is living in fear, according to an interview published in The Daily Telegraph on Thursday.
Yevgeny Limarev provided Italian academic Mario Scaramella with the list, which Scaramella then showed to Litvinenko at a central London sushi bar on November 1, about three weeks before the ex-spy died of poisoning, with large quantities of radioactive substance polonium-210 found in his urine.
"I am exposed to any kind of attack or danger," Limarev told the Telegraph, speaking from his home in France.
"I am the third person to be mentioned directly to do with this memo - Alex is dead, and Mario maybe. I could be next."
The memo claimed Russian secret service agents and a veterans group called Dignity and Honour, run by a Colonel Valentin Velichko, were trying to kill off the "enemy No 1 of Russia" Boris Berezovsky and his "companion in arms" Litvinenko.
It also accuses the group of involvement in the death of the Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed outside her Moscow apartment in October.
Limarev, however, denied having written the report, saying instead that it was given to him by a source of his.
"The three-page memo came through a channel I organised for Mr Scaramella ... It was a source in Russia with perfect access to the intelligence but it was not the only one."
"Extracts were written by one of my sources and Scaramella asked me to comment."
"I feel myself in big danger because my name has been mentioned as the source of the documents passed to Litvinenko," Limarev said.
Limarev said he suspected Dignity and Honour could be responsible for Litvinenko's death, naming Velichko, the group's leader, as someone who should be questioned by police.
- AFP
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