Exclusive MI6 INVESTIGATES IF ALEXANDER LITVINENKO HAD AL-QAEDA CONTACTS

by Gordon Thomas

London. MI6 are urgently investigating a claim that Alexander Litvinenko had not only converted to Islam before his death, but was approached by al- Qaeda operatives during a trip the former Russian spy made to the Middle East. The meeting is said to have taken place three weeks before his death. Litvinenko was apparently asked to provide al-Qaeda with materials to make a “dirty bomb”. Professor Mario Scaramella, the mysterious Italian who had been a consultant to an Italian parliamentary commission investigating connections between the former KGB and Italian politicians during the Cold War, was also interviewed by MI6 officers in London. Scaramella is now in the same London hospital where Litvinenko died being investigated for “radiation toxicity”. Doctors said he “is well”, but close friends claim Scaramella fears he “will soon die” from his exposure to Polonium 210. The 37 year-old academic, who describes himself as “a security consultant”, is a colourful player in the ever expanding drama. He claims he was shot at by an Italian Mafia hit-man during the time he served on the Mitrokhin Commission – created when Silvio Berlusconi was Italy’s prime minister. The commission produced dossiers on a number of Berlusconi’s political opponents, including Romana Prodi, the current Italian premier. Scaramella also introduced Litvinenko to the commission and they became friends. The commission is now disbanded. The two men last met on November 1, in London. Hours later Litvinenko was dying in hospital. MI6 officers plan to ask Scaramella what he knows about Litvinenko’s last operation for the Russian Federal Intelligence Service. In March, 2000, he was part of a secret operation to fly a shipment of radioactive material from a Russian nuclear site to Zurich. Its final destination remains unknown. Litvinenko’s role was to guard the consignment on board a 2 Russian military aircraft. Swiss airport authorities say they have no record of the flight. Last week another former KGB agent, Evgueni Limanov – who had supplied Mario Scaramella and Alexander Litvinenko with documents warning they were the targets of a Kremlin hit squad – was being protected by French security agents in his home in the small French Alps village of Cluses. In 2002 Limanov received USD15,000 from Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian oligarch and London based billionaire, to set up a website attacking Vladimir Putin. Berezovsky is described on the website as being viewed by Putin as “enemy No 1 in Russia”. It was Limanov who created the memo that Scaramella handed to Litvinenko at the Isu sushi restaurant in Picadilly, London. The document claimed both Scaramella and Litvinenko were being targeted by a Russian hit squad. The spy scandal has spread across Europe after a briefing to foreign government agencies by MI6 on Sunday. It came after the Italian secret service, Sismi, provided telephone intercept tapes to MI6 on which Mario Scaramella claims leading European politicians and businessmen as “once being deep cover KGB informers”. A senior MI6 officer described the claims as having “the capacity to create a political earthquake within the European community”. He added: “The allegations are very detailed and will need the most urgent investigation. We need to know whether the names Mario Scaramella provides did not only work for the former KGB, but have maintained connections with Russian security officers operating today”. Before he came to London, Mario Scaramella knew he faced potential criminal charges in Italy for being in possession of what are described as “state secrets”. The MI6 officer said: “What is emerging is that the death of Alexander Litvinenko is the tip of a carefully coordinated intelligence operation across Europe”. MI6 and the DST are also checking claims that shortly before his death, Litvinenko flew to Israel to meet with a Russian millionaire living in Tel Aviv. During that time the former spy also met with Mossad. 3 Scaramella has described the meetings on one tape as “highly sensitive”. Mossad sources have confirmed Litvinenko had such a meeting with two officers from its Russia Desk and that a further meeting had been scheduled in London. The date was set shortly after Litvinenko was admitted to hospital where he died.

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Gordon Thomas is the author of Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, the new edition of which will be published in January 2007. He specialises in international intelligence matters.

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