Suspect 'spoke to Litvinenko on his death bed'

The man accused of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko insisted again that he was innocent yesterday as he revealed that he spoke to the former KGB agent on his deathbed.

Speaking on Russian television, Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB bodyguard, said he spoke to Mr Litvinenko by telephone when he was already in the London hospital where he died.

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"He was in a grave condition in the hospital and practically couldn't speak," Mr Lugovoi said. "I spoke to him, I spoke to his wife who connected me to him and not a word was said against me."

Mr Lugovoi was one of three Russians Mr Litvinenko met at the Millennium hotel in Mayfair, London, on 1 November last year, hours before he fell ill. In the interview, Mr Lugovoi, who visited London three times in the month before Mr Litvinenko's death and met the former agent four times, repeated his earlier claim that he visited Britain to attend a football match. Mr Lugovoi, who could now face prosecution in Russia after authorities refused to extradite him to Britain, said he considers himself the victim of a "nuclear assault".

In a deathbed statement, Mr Litvinenko accused the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, of being behind his poisoning and accused the Russian authorities of being behind the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The Kremlin has denied the claims.

Meanwhile, Mr Litvinenko's widow, Marina, called for her husband's killers to be brought to justice as a documentary about Mr Litvinenko was premiered yesterday as a surprise addition to the Cannes Film Festival.

Speaking to The Independent on Sunday, Mrs Litvinenko said: "I hope that the killers of my husband and those that sent them will be brought to justice: then at least I will have some kind of closure. This film is really important: I hope it will keep Sasha's memory alive and make sure people do not forgetwhat happened.

"I am still in shock about what has happened. Even now it does not feel real. Not a day goes by when I do not think about him. To know that the people behind his death are still free is heartbreaking."

The new film, Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case, was made by the Russian director Andrei Nekrasov, who attended the film's screening with its producer, Olga Konskaya, and Mr Litvinenko's widow.

The film is a long series of interviews with her husband during the five years between leaving Russia and his fatal poisoning with polonium-210 in London last November. It also features interviews with the Russian exile's widow, and with Anna Politkovskaya, the tycoon Boris Berezovsky and various former colleagues in the KGB.

The film makes no outright accusations about Mr Litvinenko's killing.However, his widow says in the film: "He knew very well that he might be attacked and he knew of the existence of hit lists - lists of people who were to be shot."