Italy's Prodi slams British media over spy claim

ISTANBUL, Jan 23 (Reuters) Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi today rejected British TV allegations that he had had links to the Soviet KGB and his spokesman said Britain's two biggest television channels had fallen victim to ''news piracy''.

Both the BBC and ITV broadcast programmes yesterday showing video footage of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian state security former operative who was murdered by radiation in London in November, making the claim against Prodi.

The existence of the video-taped allegations, filmed by an Italian prosecutor in February 2006, has long been known in Italy but the charges have been largely considered unreliable by its media.

According to Italian investigators, Mario Scaramella, an Italian contact of Litvinenko, persuaded the Russian to repeat on camera the accusation against Prodi which he had heard from former Russian spy, Anatoly Trofimov.

''Trofimov did not exactly say that Prodi was a KGB agent, because the KGB avoids using that word,'' Litvinenko said, according to a news report on ITV's Web site.

''He said Prodi was our man'... a KGB man... and that the KGB, with Prodi, was carrying out some secret, dirty operations in Italy. My understanding was that Prodi was working for the KGB.'' The KGB is the acronym for the old Soviet state security apparatus which has since been renamed the FSB (Federal Security Service).

Prodi was on a two-day visit to Turkey when the programmes were aired, but his spokesman issued a statement saying he was stunned British media were running a story which had been ''cleared up by the Italian legal system and press''.

''I am stunned that news organs which so often are seen as authoritative are lending credence to false news given by odd sources, to people who have already been discredited, to such news piracy,'' spokesman Silvio Sircana said.

Litvinenko's brother Maxim, who lives in Italy, has told investigators that Litvinenko warned he knew nothing about Prodi and did not have any documents against him.

Prodi has threatened to sue anybody who slandered him concerning the alleged ties to the KGB.

Reuters PDS RN0015