London late Thursday, November 23, three weeks after he was poisoned.
University College Hospital said the ex-KGB agent died after his condition had been deteriorating throughout the day.
"The medical team at the hospital did everything possible to save his life," hospital spokesman Jim Down said, confirming the Russian had died at 2121 UTC Thursday, November 23.
"Every avenue was explored to establish the cause of his condition, and the matter is now an ongoing investigation being dealt with by detectives," he said.
RUSSIAN INVOLVEMENT?
Litvinenko’s supporters have accused the Russian government of poisoning the 43-year-old, who had been given asylum and citizenship in Britain a month ago after fleeing Russia.They claimed he was killed because he was investigating the murder last month of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead near her Moscow apartment.
The Kremlin has said the accusation is "sheer nonsense". However London’s Metropolitan Police seemed to move towards a murder investigation saying they are looking into the former spy’s death as "an unexplained death," Sky News television reported.
Litvinenko said he was given poison on November 1, while investigating the slaying of another Kremlin critic, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Like Litvinenko, she had criticized the Kremlin’s policies towards the breakaway region of Chechnya.
FAR CRY
Just before he died he seemed a far cry from the man he was several weeks ago: his hair had fallen out, his throat was swollen and his immune and nervous systems were damaged.
In statements his friend, Andrei Nekrasov, said Litvinenko’s skin had turned yellow, a possible effect of liver failure. Another family friend, Alex Goldfarb, reportedly joined Litvinenko’s wife Marina, his son Anatoli and the former agent’s father by his bedside before he passed away.
On the day he first felt ill, Litvinenko said he had two meetings. In the morning, he met with an unidentified Russian and with Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB colleague and bodyguard to one-time Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar at a London hotel. Later, he reportedly dined with Italian security expert Mario Scaramella to discuss the October murder of Politkovskaya .
KILLERS NAMED
Scaramella told reporters in Rome this week he had traveled to meet Litvinenko to discuss an e-mail he received from a source naming the killers of Politkovskaya, who was gunned down October 7 at her Moscow apartment building, and outlining that he and Litvinenko were on a hit list.
Goldfarb said that he had a photocopy of the four-page e-mail and confirmed that it did read like the hit list described by Scaramella.
"What’s in there confirms what Scaramella said. It lists several targets for assassination, among them are Politkovskaya, Litvinenko, Scaramella, Berezovsky and others," he said. But he refused to say who compiled the document, saying that it could jeopardize the police investigation into the poisoning, The Associated Press (AP) news agency reported.
Alexander Litvinenko had made the Kremlin furious by alleging that the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), the successor organization of the Cold War-era KGB and not Chechen rebels, were involved in explosions that shook Moscow in 1999. "They have the same motives, purpose, the same pattern. FSB wants to frighten citizens so that they would give unquestioning support to the present power," Litvinenko told PRIMA news agency in 2004.
Journalists as well as religious minorities, including evangelical Christians, are increasingly persecuted in the region, human rights groups suggest. (With BosNewsLife Research and reports from London and Russia)
