A mysterious Italian character appears to be carrying substantial quantities of Polonium 210...enough to send him for a permanent meeting with his mate, the Russian Litvinenko.....Italian who dined with the former KGB spy may yet share his fate' STEPHEN MCGINTY
HE IS an enigma. An Italian academic at a university that refuses to confirm his status. A suspected gun runner. A victim of the Russian state or an secret extension of its iron fist? Questions swirled around the smartly dressed figure of Mario Scaramella last night as it was revealed he was carrying traces of polonium 210 in a "significant" quantity.
The Italian who dined with Alexander Litvinenko on the day the former KGB spy fell ill with radioactive poisoning was taken to University College Hospital London yesterday. Last night doctors confirmed he had been contaminated, though with far less of the substance than the dead Russian.
Consultant Keith Patterson said: "Tests have detected polonium 210 in Mr Scaramella's body but at a considerably lower level than Mr Litvinenko. He is currently well and shows no symptoms of radiation poisoning. He is receiving further tests over the weekend."
The revelation that Mr Scaramella's body contained a level which, experts said, was far above that expected on those exposed by social contact with Mr Litvinenko, indicates that he could have been a target of a second political assassination - "My son has been poisoned," claimed his father, Amedeo Scaramella, from Naples, last night.
But the difference in dosages between the two men may be a sign the academic was involved in a poisoning attempt in some other unexplained way.
What has become clear is that Winston Churchill's famous description of Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" could equally well describe Mr Scaramella.
When Mr Litvinenko became ill, Mr Scaramella came forward to explain how he had met the former KGB officer at the Itsu sushi bar in London to discuss a hit-list of Russian critics, mentioning Mr Litvinenko. They had first met when Mr Scaramella brought Mr Litvinenko to Italy in 2004 to testify to the Mitrokhin Commission, set up in 2001 to investigate KGB activities in Italy during and after the Cold War.
Mr Scaramella later told Italian authorities that Mr Litvinenko told him of an arms shipment coming to Italy, to be used in assassination attempts against him and Senator Paolo Guzzanti, who was chairing the commission.
Yesterday the Italian newspaper La Repubblica claimed the academic was under investigation for smuggling weapons between the former Soviet Union and Italy. It detailed how police in his home town, Naples, had been looking into the consulting work Mr Scaramella had carried out with Mr Guzzanti while working on the Mitrokhin Commission.
The newspaper alleged that police became suspicious as Mr Scaramella was said to have "detailed information", down to the route of the truck carrying the weapons.
It claimed police intercepted conversations with Mr Litvinenko discussing arms shipments from the former Soviet Union. They also intercepted conversations with another Russian secret service defector Euvgenij Limarev - the source of the e-mail hit-list shown to Mr Litvinenko.
La Repubblica claimed that magistrates asked Italian intelligence whether Mr Scaramella was working for them and were told he was not - though they could not be sure he was not working for another department. The article quoted sources who believed Mr Scaramella and his organisation, the Environmental Crime Prevention Programme, were CIA funded.
Mr Scaramella's lawyer says he has been told of no investigation and that he is happy to co-operate with magistrates.
What is known is that information on Mr Scaramella is difficult to come by. When Naples University - where he has been said to be based - has refused to say whether he works there.
In a 2004 interview with La Repubblica, he said he was a security expert trained in England, France and Belgium, was 36 and had two children.
He also said he had held a post at San Jose University in the United States and had been recruited by the CIA to go to Colombia to research links between Russian spies and drug trafficking.
On 13 March, 2004, while he was a consultant for the inquiry into alleged links between the KGB and the leftist Italian militants the Red Brigades, he was caught in gunfire between police and Mafia.
Information about the Environmental Crime Prevention Programme, which Mr Scaramella is said to head, is also scarce.
Nick Pisa, the first British journalist to interview Mr Scaramella following the Litvinenko poisoning, said: "The one thing I could not shake from my mind was how he spoke English with a slight Russian accent - being of southern Italian background myself I can recognise a Neapolitan accent and Professor Scaramella had no trace of one when he spoke English.
"His mannerisms were not like those of a typical southern Italian - there was very little hand waving and excitable chatter.
"Two days later, he held his now infamous press conference in Rome where he shattered illusions of James Bond style espionage by revealing he had eaten at Pizza Hut before meeting Litvinenko. Again this to me seemed strange - a true Neapolitan would never dream of having pizza anywhere but Naples, let alone set foot in Pizza Hut.
There are lots of things that just don't add up.
It crossed my mind he may be a fantasist who likes to talk the talk, but now I'm not so sure. My firm belief is that he is a spy, but who for, exactly, is the question."
Yet a bright light was shone on the relationship between Mr Scaramella and Mr Litvinenko, who was quoted in a previously unpublished interview as saying that he believed the professor threatened to have his brother evicted from Italy in order to secure his testimony before the commission.
He described how Mr Scaramella had paid for his flight and hotel expenses to give evidence.
Mr Litvinenko said: "We arranged that I would come to Italy in February 2004. Then around that time something unexplainable happened. I have a brother called Maxim who has lived in Italy for four years. A month before I was due to arrive Maxim called me in a desperate state.
"The police no longer recognised his education visa and were going to expel him and send him back to Russia, which meant certain death. I asked Mario for help. He said not to worry and that [prime minister Silvio] Berlusconi had taken a personal interest in my information and that it would be sorted out and Maxim had nothing to worry about.
"I gave the commission all the help they wanted and Maxim was given political asylum. Maxim told me Mario had gone to the police station in Rimini and spoken to the police. I'm certain the whole thing was done to convince me to co-operate.''
Now it is Mr Scaramella who is co-operating with Scotland Yard, which, according to a close friend of the professor, is housing him in a castle. Mr Scaramella is said to have commented: "They are treating me like the Prince of Wales."
They are also treating him like a potential key to the case. The question many people will be asking is whether he is a victim or a possible perpetrator. Tests show traces of radiation on Litvinenko's wife
THE wife of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko has tested positive for traces of polonium-210 following the former intelligence officer's death, friends and officials said yesterday.
Marina Litvinenko had shown no ill effects after she was confirmed as having shown traces of the radioactive substance, the former spy's friend, Alex Goldfarb, said.
"She is very slightly contaminated," Mr Goldfarb said. "There are no dangerous levels, no treatment, no hospitalisation."
Pat Troop, chief executive of the Britain's Health Protection Agency, said earlier that the member of the family who had tested positively - who had not yet been named as his wife - had been exposed to a "very small" long-term health risk
"This adult family member received a tiny fraction of the lethal dose received by Mr Litvinenko himself," Ms Troop said.
Mr Litvinenko's wife and his father, Walter, kept a vigil at his hospital bedside in the days before he died.
So far 2,655 people have contacted NHS Direct fearing that they may have been in contact with the substance. A total of 356 have been asked to provide a urine sample for analysis.
But this figure could rise further as police trace Mario Scaramella's movements in the UK - revealing more sites that would have to be examined by scientists for alpha radiation.
Meanwhile, the post-mortem examination on Mr Litvinenko was completed yesterday at the Royal London Hospital. Those present wore protective clothing to avoid contamination.
