22:10, 23 November 2006

Health condition of poisoned Litvinenko has sharply worsened

The wife of Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned ex-officer of the FSB, whose health condition has seriously aggravated during the last night and became extremely grave, was urgently called to the London University Hospital, where the patient is kept. Alexander Goldfarb, Litvinenko's friend, told about it and explained in his interview to the BBC that "most probably, now he is connected to the artificial blood circulation system": "Yesterday night, he suffered a catastrophic blood tension drop and possibly a cardiac arrest."

The TV Company disclosed the details of the X-ray study held a day before: allegedly, three dense objects were detected in Litvinenko's intestines; one of them had most probably burst out. Mr. Goldfarb asserts that nobody has so far told Litvinenko's wife about the results of the study, the "Reuters" reports.

On November 1, Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in one of London restaurants during his meeting with informant Mario Skaramella. Litvinenko informed that Skaramella had given him some documents containing information on the killers of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.