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LONDON: The wife of a former spy who died after being poisoned with polonium-210 said Sunday that she suspects Russian authorities may be behind his death.
In interviews with two Sunday newspapers and a British broadcaster, Marina Litvinenko recalled the final hours of her husband, the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko — whom she called Sasha — and worried that his criticism of the Russian establishment may have led to his death.
Alexander Litvinenko himself believed he had been targeted, and he and his emigre allies have blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the poisoning — allegations that have been strongly denied.
"Obviously it was not Putin himself, of course not," Marina Litvinenko told The Mail on Sunday. "But what Putin does around him in Russia makes it possible to kill a British person on British soil. I believe that it could have been the Russian authorities."
Marina Litvinenko said her husband, who had also worked for the Federal Security Service, or FSB, was not a spy but an investigator who focused on organized crime, and that his public criticism of the Russian authorities likely had irritated his former colleagues at the FSB.
"Sasha was (a) person who openly went out from system and accused the system of killing people, of kidnap," she told Sky News, speaking in English. "System never forgive you about this. It doesn't matter he say true, just because he openly say it."
Her husband — who recently had become a British citizen — felt safe in London, Marina Litvinenko said, and did not worry about reprisals from the Russian authorities.
"Sasha never felt he was a target for that," she told The Sunday Times. "Of course, he wondered about other people, but not about himself. Every time, he was concerned about other people, to save their life. But he was absolutely — no, I can't say absolutely — but he wasn't sure he was a target for them."
In the interviews, Marina Litvinenko also relived her husband's final hours and said the day he fell ill had been a special one for the couple. It was Nov. 1, the anniversary of the day they came to Britain. That was the evening he fell ill; Alexander Litvinenko died Nov. 23.
"He began complaining that he felt sick. Then he vomited. I thought that would be it, but he did it again and again, about every 25 minutes," Marina Litvinenko told The Mail. "He said, 'There is something very wrong with me. Sometimes my heart can't cope with it because it is so strong when I vomit.'
"He also said everything was strange, looked gray. He said, 'It looks like someone has poisoned me. When I was in military school, I learned about this.'"
Every time she went to the hospital to see her husband, she could see the toll the poison was taking on his once-healthy body.
"I didn't lose my hope. He was very fit for his age. He didn't smoke; he didn't drink," she told The Times. "He was a very handsome man. But (in the hospital) each day for him was like 10 years — he became older in how he looked."
Marina Litvinenko has decided to place her faith in British investigators and does not intend to cooperate with Russian authorities, who plan to come to London to investigate her husband's death.
"Sasha said personal life was very important in England. It's not very important in Russia," she said in The Times. "In Russia, it doesn't matter how many people are killed. I'd like to believe (the) life (of) only one person can still be very important in England."
As her husband neared the end of his life, Marina Litvinenko was preparing to leave the central London hospital where he was being treated, when her seriously ill husband spoke his first full sentence of the day — and for the last time to his wife.
"Marina," he said, "I love you so much."
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