The man who wanted to be a spy

ROME, Dec 9: Contamination with polonium 210 may mean a lifetime of health worries for Mario Scaramella, but his most pressing problem now is the welcome he can expect at home.

Discharged from a London hospital this week with no sign of radiation poisoning, the Italian contact of murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko intends to soon return to Italy where he faces judicial probes with political overtones.

His exposure to the isotope that killed Litvinenko, and the subsequent interest of the Italian press, have spotlighted investigations into arms trafficking and illegal waste disposal.

While he was in London, police in Naples raided his home and offices to seize a computer and paperwork.

Scaramella also faces accusations of pursuing a politically motivated hunt for evidence that could tie Italy's centre-left politicians to the KGB.

''I have to speak now with Italian authorities,'' Scaramella told Reuters by telephone from London. He denies any wrongdoing.

Just a month ago, he was chatting with a healthy-looking Litvinenko at a London sushi bar, showing him emails warning that their lives might be in danger. Litvinenko told him, bluntly, the information was ''shit''.

A few weeks later, Litvinenko was dead, Scaramella was in hospital, and a room in the Italian senate where he met with reporters was being swept for radiation. Dmitry Kovtun, another contact who met with Litvinenko, is in critical condition with radiation poisoning in a Moscow hospital.

Scaramella's ex-wife kept his children home from school, as did the parents of their classmates, worried that radioactive isotopes from polonium may have rubbed off on his offspring.

''DELUDED''

With purported links to universities in India and Colombia and previous jobs including judge and environmental consultant, Scaramella is an anomoly who Italians suspect may be a spy.

But the government says all Scaramella's approaches to collaborate with Italian intelligence agencies in the 1990s were turned down.

Scaramella says he only slipped into the world of Soviet espionage when the self-styled ''security consultant'' was tapped to work on a parliamentary commission in 2003. The Mitrokhin Commission, led by Sen Paolo Guzzanti, was set up to probe the revelations of Vasili Mitrokhin, a Soviet archivist during the Cold War who defected to Britain in 1992.

One of Scaramella's contacts said the Mitrokhin Commission's real aim was to hurt centre-left politician Romano Prodi, who was elected prime minister in April.

''I deluded myself into thinking the aims of Guzzanti and Scaramella were linked to KGB attempts to penetrate the Italian left in the 1970s-80s,'' Oleg Gordievsky, a friend of Litvinenko, told Italy's La Repubblica daily. ''They wanted Prodi's head.'' Gordievsky said the man who gave Scaramella information suggesting the KGB looked favourably on Prodi was Litvinenko, who testified to the commission before it shut down this year.

He said Litvinenko ''...in the end decided to tell Scaramella what Scaramella wanted to hear.'' Prodi's office sent out a statement warning his lawyers were ready to sue anyone who slandered him.

Litvinenko opened the door to a world of KGB contacts that landed Scaramella in trouble. One tipped the Italian off about an arms shipment for which he is now being investigated. Then he received the emailed death threat that he showed Litvinenko in a London sushi bar on November. 1.

He didn't eat, but still managed to be contaminated.

The hitlist in the email included Litvinenko, Scaramella and Guzzanti, for alleged links to an exiled Russian tycoon -- links which Scaramella denies.

Hospital officials told him he received about a twentieth of Litvinenko's dose -- but they also said Litvinenko had received the equivalent of 100 lethal doses, said Scaramella.

Discharged from hospital, he remains worried for his future.

He is waiting for test results and will stay in London for at least another week before returning to Italy, his lawyer said.

''Nobody is able to tell me what will happen to me in the years to come,'' Scaramella told Italian media.

REUTERS