Italian link in Litvinenko case to be questioned

ROME: The Italian contact of murdered former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko will be questioned on Wednesday in a Rome jail where he is being held on accusations of aggravated slander, his lawyer said.   

Mario Scaramella was arrested at Naples airport on Sunday after flying home for Christmas from London, where he had been in hospital after testing positive for the radioactive isotope that killed Litvinenko last month.   

He was one of the last people to meet Litvinenko on the day he fell ill.   

His lawyer said Scaramella planned to cooperate with prosecutors, who have included him in investigations into arms trafficking and violating secrecy rules while working as a parliamentary consultant on Cold War-era Soviet espionage.   

Lawyer Sergio Rastrelli said the aggravated slander charges related to a Ukrainian official whom Scaramella had linked to a plot against his life and the life of Sen. Paolo Guzzanti, the head of the parliamentary commission looking into Soviet spying.    
"The suspicion regarding Scaramella for which Mr. Scaramella was arrested is a suspicion of slander regarding a former official of the Ukrainian Soviet secret services," Rastrelli told Italy's Sky television.   

Guzzanti said he believed the arrest was related to Scaramella's tip-off to Italian authorities about grenades being smuggled in Italy by a group of Ukrainians.   

Italian newspapers, citing the arrest-warrant, said prosecutors suspected Scaramella had invented the plot.   

During his Nov. 1 meeting with Litvinenko at a London sushi bar, Scaramella said he had showed him emails from a mutual source warning of a possible plot against their lives.   

Litvinenko, in a statement released after his death on Nov. 23, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of masterminding his poisoning.   

The Kremlin has denied involvement in the case, which has sparked conspiracy theories, revived memories of Cold War spying and strained relations between Russia and Britain.