Former Russian spy's life hangs in balance after suspected poisoning

The suspected poisoning of a Russian spy-turned-dissident with a substance nicknamed "inheritance powder" harks back to the old-school methods of the Soviet secret police.

Alexander Litvinenko, who fled Russia for Britain six years ago, was last night under armed guard in University College Hospital, London, after falling ill following a meeting with a contact in a Piccadilly sushi bar. A friend said he looked "like a ghost" and had been given only a 50 per cent chance of survival.

But there were claims the Russian mafia was more likely than the intelligence services to have poisoned Mr Litvinenko because of his investigations into organised crime.

Mr Litvinenko, 43, remained in a serious but stable condition last night, 19 days after the lunch with an Italian professor, Mario Scaramella, who gave him documents claiming to name the killers of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The investigative reporter was gunned down last month outside her Moscow apartment building.

It emerged last night that Mr Scaramella, said to be "well-connected" in the intelligence community, has gone into hiding. Friends said he had spoken to British intelligence after realising he was the last person to have seen Mr Litvinenko. However, reports in Italy suggest Mr Scaramella was a member of SISMI, the Italian secret services, and also worked for the CIA and Colombian intelligence.

Thallium, a highly toxic, colourless and odourless chemical once used in rat poison, is thought to have been used against Mr Litvinenko. The former colonel in the Federal Security Service (FSB) - the successor to the KGB - had been investigating Ms Politkovskaya's murder. She had criticised abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya.

Mr Litvinenko claimed asylum in Britain in November 2000, two years after publicly accusing his FSB superiors of ordering him to kill Boris Berezovsky, a then powerful Kremlin insider and now also a dissident.

He also accused FSB agents of co-ordinating bombings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people in Russia and sparked the second war in Chechnya.

He is said to have suffered kidney and bone marrow damage, is vomiting and has lost his hair.

MURDER AND CORRUPTION

THE FSB, or Federal Security Service, was formed in 1995 to tackle Russia's feared Mafia-style gangs, terrorism and drug-smuggling and provide counter-intelligence against foreign spies.

This came after the former Soviet security service, the KGB, was broken up in 1991 following an attempt to stage a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. Initially, a group called the FSK was created, but after four years it was reorganised and renamed the FSB.

It has a tough job: Moscow is Europe's murder capital, with 18 killings for every 100,000 people each year, compared to about two per 100,000 in London, and Russia is also one of the most corrupt countries in the world, with more than 500 million in bribes estimated every day.

However, it would appear that some FSB are involved in crime. In September, prosecutors said 19 senior FSB agents were to be fired for involvement in large-scale smuggling.

Deadly and invisible substance

THALLIUM is a highly-toxic heavy metal with salts which are colourless, odourless, tasteless and soluble in water - ideal as a poison.

The chemical attacks the nervous system, lung, heart, liver, and kidneys. Hair loss, vomiting, and diarrhoea are symptoms. Death can occur after exposure to doses as small as one gram.

It was used in some rat poisons up until the mid-1970s, but authorities now strictly control its sale because of its deadly potential.

South African agents are said to have once planned to use it against Nelson Mandela while he was in prison.

The CIA also plotted to use thallium salts to make the Cuban leader Fidel Castro's beard fall out.