(AFP) - The man who provided a "hit list" that was shown to former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill is living in fear, according to an interview published in The Daily Telegraph.
Yevgeny Limarev provided Italian academic Mario Scaramella with the list, which Scaramella then showed to Litvinenko at a central London sushi bar on November 1, about three weeks before the ex-spy died of poisoning, with large quantities of radioactive substance polonium-210 found in his urine.
"I am exposed to any kind of attack or danger," Limarev told the Telegraph, speaking from his home in France, reports Trend.
"I am the third person to be mentioned directly to do with this memo -- Alex is dead, and Mario maybe. I could be next."
The memo claimed Russian secret service agents and a veterans group called Dignity and Honour, run by a Colonel Valentin Velichko, were trying to kill off the "enemy No 1 of Russia" Boris Berezovsky and his "companion in arms" Litvinenko.
It also accuses the group of involvement in the death of the Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed outside her Moscow apartment in October.
Limarev, however, denied having written the report, saying instead that it was given to him by a source of his.
"The three-page memo came through a channel I organised for Mr Scaramella ... It was a source in Russia with perfect access to the intelligence but it was not the only one."
"Extracts were written by one of my sources and Scaramella asked me to comment."
"I feel myself in big danger because my name has been mentioend as the source of the documents passed to Litvinenko," Limarev said.
Limarev said he suspected Dignity and Honour could be responsible for Litvinenko's death, naming Velichko, the group's leader, as someone who should be questioned by police.
Earlier British investigators in Moscow probing the murder of Litvinenko met a witness in the case amid signs of discord with Russian prosecutors in the inquiry.
"Investigators from the Russian prosecutor general's office and from Scotland Yard took testimony from Dmitry Kovtun," Andrei Romashov, Kovtun's lawyer, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
Kovtun and a business associate, Andrei Lugovoi, who is also due to see British police and has hinted he may have leads for the inquiry, met Litvinenko in a London hotel on the day he fell ill.
The British team is reportedly interested in Lugovoi because planes on which he flew to and from London were found to be contaminated with radiation -- as were rooms in two London hotels where he stayed.
Romashov said Lugovoi could meet investigators on Thursday or Friday.
Meanwhile, Britain's Foreign Office said that British experts who arrived with the Scotland Yard investigators on Monday had found small traces of non-harmful radiation at the British embassy in Moscow.
"Expert teams concluded their precautionary checks in the embassy. They found no danger to public health," a Foreign Office spokesman told AFP.
Lugovoi visited the British embassy last month after an inquiry was opened into the poisoning of Litvinenko, a fierce Kremlin critic.
Both Lugovoi and Kovtun have been undergoing radiation tests. Scaramella has tested positive for tiny amounts of the same substance, polonium-210, that killed Litvinenko.
A former KGB agent and presidential security guard, Lugovoi is now involved in the security business and heads up a drinks company in Moscow. He had business dealings with Litvinenko.
Lugovoi has rejected any suggestion that he was involved in Litvinenko's death and suggested that there was a plot to have him framed. He has, however, said he could aid the British police inquiry.
Also Wednesday, Russian prosecutors pointed to disagreements with their British colleagues in the inquiry after Prosecutor General Yury Chaika earlier laid out strict ground rules for their activities in Russia.
"Despite the fact that the request has certain inconsistencies with international standards... Russian and British experts have begun their investigation," the prosecutor general's office said in a statement.
Chaika stressed that British investigators do not have the right to question witnesses directly but can only attend interviews conducted by his officers. He also said that Russian suspects could not be extradited.
Litvinenko is to be buried in a Muslim ceremony in or near London on Friday.