UK emergency COBRA team meets over spy's death

LONDON, Nov 24 (Reuters) The British government's COBRA top emergency team met twice overnight and a third time today to discuss the death of an ex-KGB spy, the cabinet office said, in a sign of escalating worry over the affair.

COBRA, named after Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, the bunker where it usually meets, is a committee of senior politicians and defence, police and intelligence chiefs which meets only in times of serious civil emergency.

The cabinet office said Home Secretary John Reid had chaired today's meeting and that Police and Security Minister Tony McNulty had also attended meetings.

COBRA was convened when a plot to blow up airliners was foiled in August. It met last year on July 7 when four suicide bombers blew themselves up on the London transport network and on July 21 when there were four more botched attempts.

British officials say ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko had ''major doses'' of radiation in his body from the rare radioactive element Polonium 210.

He died overnight after three weeks of illness and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of his murder in a statement read out after his death.

Putin has denied the Kremlin's involvement and said the death was being used as a ''political provocation''.

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