London – Scotland Yard said Wednesday it is treating the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko as murder.
The announcement came nearly two weeks after Litvinenko died in a London hospital; the rare radioactive substance polonium-210 was found in his body. Scotland Yard detectives are in Moscow as part of the widening investigation into his death.
“Detectives … have reached the stage where it is felt appropriate to treat it as an allegation of murder,” the Metropolitan Police said. “It is important to stress that we have reached no conclusions as to the means employed, the motive or the identity of those who might be responsible for Mr. Litvinenko’s death.”
Earlier Wednesday, Mario Scaramella, the Italian security expert who met with Litvinenko on Nov. 1, the day the former agent fell ill, was released from a London hospital after showing no signs of radiation poisoning.
A British official also said faint levels of the same element had been found at two locations at London’s Emirates Stadium, where a key figure in the investigation, former Russian agent Andrei Lugovoi, attended a soccer match Nov. 1. Traces also were found at the British Embassy in Moscow, the Foreign Office said. The radiation at both sites posed no public health risk, officials said.
