Litvinenko witness in hiding
A key witness in the Alexander Litvinenko investigation has gone on the run, fearing for his life.
Evgeny Limarev, a former Russian intelligence officer, is said to have given Mario Scaramella a deathlist which the Italian showed Litvinenko in London at around the time he was poisoned.
He is missing from his home in Cluses in the French Alps with his wife and teenage daughter. "Now my name has been linked to this case I fear something might happen to me," he said last week.
Mario Scaramella, the Italian security expert who met with Litvinenko at a London sushi bar later Nov. 1, reportedly said he had shown Litvinenko materials from Limarev suggesting Russian agents' involvement in the October killing of Russian investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya.
The materials also reportedly indicated that the Honor and Dignity group of Russian security veterans was plotting to kill Litvinenko and other Kremlin critics.
The group's head, Valentin Velichko, has rejected the allegations as nonsense.
Limarev, whom Russian newspaper Izvestia eported is close to self-exiled tycoon and Kremlin foe Boris Berezovsky, who lives in ritain, has not been seen in his home in Cluses, France, since Friday.
