The former Russian agent murdered in London last year was working for British intelligence at the time, the man charged with his murder claimed today.
Andrei Lugovoy, whom Russia has refused to extradite to face charges of killing Mr Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium in London, did not say who he thought murdered Mr Litvinenko,
But he suggested that British intelligence was the most likely suspect.
"Litvinenko became an agent who left the control of [British] special services and was killed," Mr Lugovoy, also a former KGB agent, told a news conference. "If not by the intelligence services themselves, then under their control or with their connivance," he added.
Mr Lugovoy said Mr Litvinenko and his patron, self-exiled billionaire Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, were both working for British secret services.
"In the words of Sasha [Litvinenko] himself, first he was recruited and afterwards, on his advice, Boris Abramovich [Berezovsky] gave to the British some [Russian] security council documents and also became an MI6 agent."
Mr Lugovoy also said British intelligence had tried to recruit him to provide compromising information on President Vladimir Putin and his family.
He again dismissed the British charges against him, saying "Britain is making me a scapegoat".
Mr Lugovoy, who now runs a private security firm in Moscow, has repeatedly denied any involvement in Mr Litvinenko's death.