Ex-KGB spy killed in London ‘warned Italy about Russian terror plot’

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A witness has told a British inquiry investigating the murder of ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko that the former spy may have been killed because he warned Italian authorities about an impending Russian terror plot. Litvinenko was an employee of the Soviet KGB and one of its successor organizations, the FSB, until 2000, when he defected with his family to the United Kingdom. He soon became known as a vocal critic of the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2006, Litvinenko came down with radioactive poisoning soon after meeting former KGB/FSB colleague Andrey Lugovoy at a London restaurant. Many suspect that the Russian government is behind Litvinenko’s murder.

Speaking in a London court on Monday, Italian newspaper editor and politician Paolo Guzzanti said he believed Litvinenko was murdered by the Kremlin because he was helping Italian authorities assess a series of Soviet and Russian intelligence operations in the country. Guzzanti was speaking as the former president of the so-called Mitrokhin Commission, a parliamentary board set up in 2002 to investigate past intelligence operations by the Soviet KGB in Italy. Most of the work of the Commission stemmed from the revelations in the Mitrokhin Archive, named after Vassili Mitrokhin, who for three decades was the archivist in the KGB’s First Chief Directorate. Mitrokhin defected to the Britain in 1992, taking with him a treasure trove of documents about Soviet intelligence activities that took place abroad during the Cold War.

Guzzanti told the inquiry that Litvinenko had cooperated with the Mitrokhin Committee and had even shared information with one of its consultants, Mario Scaramella, about ongoing attempts by the FSB to organize terrorist strikes in Italy. According to Guzzanti, Litvinenko informed Scaramella that Russian intelligence operatives were helping transport weapons from Ukraine to Italy in order to assassinate Guzzanti and thus sabotage the work of the Mitrokhin Committee. Based on Litvinenko’s information, Scaramella accused Alexander Talik, a Ukrainian former officer of the KGB who lived in Naples, Italy, of helping Russian intelligence operatives smuggle guns into the country. Talik and a number of his accomplices were promptly arrested by Italian authorities after they found several weapons and grenades in their possession. According to Guzzanti, Litvinenko’s role in stopping the alleged assassination attempt against him and other members of the Mitrokhin Committee was what led to the Kremlin’s decision to murder the former KGB spy.

At the end of Monday’s proceedings, the inquiry directors announced the would adjourn until the next provisional hearing, which has been scheduled for July 27.