Police arrest Italian man who met with a former Russian spy the day he fell ill

ROME (AP) An Italian who met with an ex-KGB agent the day the Russian fell ill from radiation poisoning was arrested on Sunday, the man's father said. <br/><br/>Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples

Sunday, December 24th 2006, 8:24 am

By: News On 6

ROME (AP) An Italian who met with an ex-KGB agent the day the Russian fell ill from radiation poisoning was arrested on Sunday, the man's father said.

Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples after returning from London. Rome prosecutors have accused him of arms trafficking and slander, and he was being taken to Rome, said his father, Amedeo Scaramella.

Scaramella met with Alexander Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on Nov. 1, the day the former KGB agent fell ill. Litvinenko died of poisoning from radioactive polonium-210 on Nov. 23.

On his deathbed, Litvinenko blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for involvement in his poisoning _ an allegation that the Kremlin denied.

Scaramella also was hospitalized for several days in London and he said doctors told him he had received five times the lethal dose of polonium-210, although he showed no symptoms.

The same day that Litvinenko met with Scaramella, the Russian met with Andrei Lugovoi, also an ex-Soviet agent; Dmitry Kovtun, a Russian businessman; and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, head of a private Russian security firm, in the bar at London's Millennium Hotel.

All three men have denied involvement in the ex-spy's death.

Scaramella has been gathering information for Italian Sen. Paolo Guzzanti _ the former chair of a parliamentary commission that examined cases of past KGB infiltration in Italy. Guzzanti said the Italian accusations against Scaramella appeared unrelated to the poisoning.

Guzzanti said Scaramella told him he was likely to be arrested upon his return to Italy.

``I told him to stay there for Christmas, but he said to me, 'no, I have no intention of appearing like a fugitive,''' said Guzzanti.

No one answered the phone at Naples police headquarters on Sunday, and Scaramella's lawyer did not immediately return a call to his cell phone. The Metropolitan Police in London had no comment on Scaramella's arrest.