Poisoned Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko suffered heart failure overnight and is now on a ventilator, Alexander Goldfarb, a friend of the former KGB spy said Thursday morning.“He went into a cardiac failure overnight and the hospital put him on artificial heart support,” said Mr. Goldfarb. London’s University College Hospital said Thursday Litvinenko’s health deteriorated overnight, and he is in “very serious” condition.

Litvinenko, 43, a former KGB agent, is suffering from the effects of an unknown poison he believes was given to him Nov. 1. His hair has fallen out, his throat is swollen and his immune and nervous systems have been damaged.

Doctors originally suspected the toxic metal thallium, but have now said it is more likely it was something else, possibly a radioactive substance.

“Mr. Litvinenko’s condition has deteriorated overnight,” the hospital said in a statement. “He is now in a very serious condition and remains in intensive care.”

Scotland Yard’s anti terrorist branch is investigating the poisoning that friends and dissidents allege was carried out at the behest of the Russian government. Litvinenko sought asylum in Britain 2000, and has been a relentless critic of the Kremlin and the Russian security services.

On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, issued its strongest denial yet that it was involved in any assassination attempt. “Litvinenko is not the kind of person for whose sake we would spoil bilateral relations,” SVR spokesman Sergei Ivanov said, according to the Interfax news agency. “It is absolutely not in our interests to be engaged in such activity.”

The British Broadcasting Corp., quoting an unidentified hospital source, reported that X-rays had shown that Litvinenko had swallowed three objects of dense matter, which had lodged in his intestine.

The BBC said it was unclear whether the objects were related to Litvinenko’s illness, and the hospital declined to comment.

Litvinenko worked both for the KGB and for a successor, the Federal Security Service. In 1998, he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill tycoon Boris Berezovsky - now exiled in Britain - and a year later spent nine months in jail on charges of abuse of office, for which he was later acquitted, and which prompted his move to London.

On the day he first felt ill, Litvinenko said he had two meetings. In the morning, he met with an unnamed Russian and Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB colleague and bodyguard to one-time Russian Prime Minster Yegor Gaidar at a London hotel. Later, he dined with Italian security expert Mario Scaramella to discuss the October murder of another Kremlin critic - investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Scaramella told reporters in Rome on Tuesday that he had travelled to meet Litvinenko to discuss an e-mail he received from a source naming the killers of Politkovskaya, who was gunned down Oct. 7 at her Moscow apartment building, and outlining that he and Litvinenko were on a hit list.

Goldfarb, Litvinenko’s friend, said Wednesday that there was nothing out of the ordinary in Litvinenko’s meeting with Lugovoy, who also worked as bodyguard to Berezovsky, the most high profile Russian exile in London.

Litvinenko has refused to implicate any of the people he met on Nov. 1 in his poisoning.

“He said there were two encounters held but he is not accusing anybody. It could have happened then or it could have happened elsewhere,” Goldfarb said.

Popularity: 3% [?]