Poisoned ex-spy said Russia agent watched him

As he lay dying, a former Russian spy poisoned in London named an alleged Kremlin agent he feared had been targeting him and who he had previously told police was harassing him, a British newspaper reported today.

Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who became a harsh critic of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, died Thursday night of heart failure after suddenly falling ill from what doctors said was poisoning by a radioactive substance.

Litvinenko, 43, alleged that a Russian Foreign Intelligence Service chief previously stationed in London had been assigned by Moscow to watch him, Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported. He named the agent in charge of monitoring him as Viktor Kirov. A man called Anatoly V. Kirov worked at the Russian Embassy in London, where he was listed as a diplomat, until late last year.

Litvinenko had called Putin “barbaric and ruthless” and accused him of ordering the poisoning. The Russian president has denied involvement.

And in interviews with scholars months before his death, Litvinenko described how he was ordered to hire assassins to neutralize potential rivals and whistle-blowers who threatened the Kremlin, according to excerpts published and broadcast Saturday.

Police released his highly contaminated body to a coroner late Saturday, and Home Office pathologists were expected to begin an autopsy. But experts said investigators might never pinpoint the source of the radioactive polonium-210 that toxicologists found in Litvinenko’s urine.

The dissident was interviewed by James Heartfield and Julia Svetlichnaja of the University of Westminster for a total of about six hours in April and May.

Litvinenko was recruited into the Soviet-era KGB and also worked for its successor, the Federal Security Service. He was later promoted to a counter-terrorism and organized-crime unit. After the fall of communism, he said, his directive was to recruit powerful businessmen who could stimulate an economic boom, and to hire assassins.

British detectives investigating his death launched an international hunt for witnesses Saturday and spooled through hours of security video for clues. They were examining closed-circuit television footage and interviewing workers at a hotel and restaurant the victim had visited shortly before he fell ill, a police spokeswoman said.

The British government convened a crisis committee with security officials for a third consecutive day. The meetings are attended by top security, health and diplomatic officials on issues such as terrorism.

In the interviews, Litvinenko said that by 1997 his department was “responsible for illegal punishments or so-called extralegal executions of unsuitable businessmen, politicians and other public figures. In parallel, the department blackmailed the same targets for funds.”

In 1998, he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who was living in exile in London.

Litvinenko spent nine months in jail on charges of abuse of office, then was acquitted and moved to Britain, which granted him asylum in 2000.

The Cabinet Office said a coroner would soon start an investigation on Litvinenko’s death, raising the prospect of allegations being aired in court.