Mario Scaramella, who met Litvinenko before his death, arrested

Police have arrested an Italian man who met with a former Russian spy in London the day the ex-KGB agent fell ill from poisoning, the Italian man's father said.

Photo: Mario Scaramella, who met Litvinenko before his death, arrested

Mario Scaramella, who met Litvinenko before his death, arrested

Mario Scaramella was arrested Sunday in Naples after returning from London. Rome prosecutors have accused him of international arms trafficking and slander, and he was being taken to Rome, according to his father, Amedeo Scaramella.

He added that the judge overseeing his son's case was on holiday, and he did not expect there to be any news or developments over the next three days. Scaramella's lawyer, Sergio Rastrelli, told RAI Tg1 TV news that he was scheduled to be questioned Wednesday.

Rastrelli said he expected Scaramella to tell investigators that all his actions were "legitimate and rightful."

No one answered the phone at Naples police headquarters Sunday, and Rastrelli did not return several call to his cell phone.

Scaramella is the first person connected to the poisoning case to be arrested. However, the charges were not believed to be directly related to that case.

Scaramella met with Alexander Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on Nov. 1, the day the former KGB agent fell ill. Litvinenko died of poisoning from radioactive polonium-210 on Nov. 23.

Scaramella said he showed Litvinenko e-mails from a confidential source identifying the possible killers of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and listing other potential targets for assassination including himself and Litvinenko.

On his deathbed, Litvinenko blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for involvement in his poisoning an allegation that the Kremlin denied.

British police had no comment on Scaramella's arrest.

Scaramella also was hospitalized for several days in London and he said doctors told him he had received five times the lethal dose of polonium-210, although he showed no symptoms. He left the hospital a few days later.

Overall, 10 people in Britain tested positive for radiation since Litvinenko died, including two staff members at the Millennium Hotel in London.

The same day that Litvinenko met with Scaramella, the Russian met with Andrei Lugovoi, also an ex-Soviet agent; Dmitry Kovtun, a Russian businessman; and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, head of a private Russian security firm, at the bar at Millennium Hotel.

British investigators traveled to Russia to investigate the death, and both Kovtun and Lugovoi have been interviewed by police as witnesses.

All three men have denied involvement in the ex-spy's death.

Scaramella has been gathering information for Italian Sen. Paolo Guzzanti the former chair of a parliamentary commission that examined cases of past KGB infiltration in Italy. Guzzanti said the Italian accusations against Scaramella appeared unrelated to the poisoning.

Guzzanti said he had spoken to Scaramella on Saturday, and Scaramella told him that British police had told him he would be arrested upon his return to Italy.

"I told him to stay there for Christmas, but he said to me, 'no, I have no intention of appearing like a fugitive,' " Guzzanti said.

Guzzanti added that police in London had given Scaramella a certificate acknowledging that he had fully cooperated with their investigation.