Russian "ready to talk to UK police" about ex-spy

MOSCOW, Nov 24 (Reuters) A Russian former intelligence official was quoted today as saying he was ready to answer any questions from British police over a meeting he had with ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, the day before Litvinenko fell ill.

Litvinenko, a former spy and critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died yesterday in a London hospital from poisoning three weeks ago by an unknown substance.

His friends say he was the victim of a Kremlin-orchestrated assassination plot. The Kremlin says these reports are nonsense.

Businessman Andrei Lugovoy, a former officer in the FSB state security service, told Kommersant daily that he met Litvinenko in the bar of a London hotel on November 1 together with two other Russian acquaintances.

The next day Litvinenko called him to cancel another meeting because he did not feel well.

Kommersant quoted Lugovoy as saying he had passed on details of the November 1 meeting to a Moscow-based diplomat. ''I said ... that I am ready to answer all questions which the police see fit to ask,'' he said.

A British embassy spokesman confirmed Lugovoy met Deputy Ambassador Sian MacLeod yesterday before Litvinenko died. ''The meeting took place at his (Lugovoy's) request'', the spokesman said but declined to give any details of the substance of their talks.

Lugovoy, according to the Kommersant account, was accompanied by two business partners, Dmitry Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, when he met Litvinenko.

He gave no details of what they talked about. But he said their meetings were invariably about business.

''There was nothing personal in our contacts -- only business,'' Lugovoy was quoted as saying.

He said they arranged to meet again the following day. However, Litvinenko phoned the next day to say he felt unwell and called the meeting off.

REUTERS DKA KN1558