24 April 2008

The widow of murdered Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko urged the US Senate to pass a resolution calling for America to press Russian officials to cooperate with British investigators probing her husband's death.
Mr Litvinenko, 43, died from radiation poisoning in a London hospital in November 2006 after swallowing a rare isotope. Yesterday his widow Marina gave a key speech on state-sponsored terrorism in Washington DC in a bid to ease the progress of the resolution which was passed by the US House of Representatives earlier this month.
"Until recently Britain had to face Russia alone, while the EU and the US Administration looked the other way," Mrs Litvinenko said.
"That is why I am so grateful to the US Congress for naming -for the first time at an official level- the suspect state.
"We must expose the people who sent an assassin to London with a weapon of mass destruction in a suitcase.
"If they went to such lengths to get rid of my husband, imagine what they would do if their larger interests were at stake."
Alex Goldfarb, the president of the Litvinenko Justice Foundation which organised the trip, said: "This was the first ever terrorist attack using nuclear material, which introduced Polonium-210 as a potential terror weapon.
"We want to highlight the security aspect of the Litvinenko murder to the US policymakers."
The resolution expressed "the sense of Congress that the (death) raises significant concerns about the potential involvement of elements of the Russian government".
The move is likely to annoy Russia at a time when US-Russian tensions are high as the US pushes a missile defence plan for Europe that Russia has opposed.
During the trip, Mrs Litvinenko met several members of the Senate, including Diane Feinstein, chairwoman of the sub-committee on terrorism, technology and homeland security, as well as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Press Association National Newswire

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