The Times
November 20, 2006
Exile's contact in hiding after 'being made a scapegoat'
Mario Scaramella, the self-described “security consultant” who was with Alexander Litvinenko when he was allegedly poisoned in a sushi bar in London, is a shadowy figure with possible links to both Italian and Russian Intelligence. Yesterday he was reported to be in hiding, fearing for his life.
A close friend of Mr Scaramella, who did not want to give his name, said yesterday: “Mario is worried that the Russians and the Chechens are after him. He has obviously been made some sort of scapegoat. Mario is very well connected and has a lot of sources within the intelligence agencies but he did not have any involvement in the attempt on Mr Litvinenko’s life.
“Mario was very good at finding and gathering information in Russia and has very good connections there. The last time I spoke to him he felt very worried and threatened. He was very concerned because he feels he has been set up.
“Mario was the last man to see Litvinenko before the attempt on his life so there is going to be some suggestion that he was involved, but he is adamant he had nothing to do with it.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2462162,00.htmlMitrokhin Commission
In 2002 Italian Parliament, then led by a center-right coalition, created a Parliamentary Commission to investigate alleged KGB ties to opposition figures in Italian politics. These allegations included former (and current) premier Romano Prodi, among others. The commission's President was Paolo Guzzanti, a member of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party. The commission was shut down in 2006 without any concrete evidence given to support the original allegations of KGB ties to Italian politicians. The final report maintains that the former Soviet Union was behind the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, without providing evidence to back this claim.
The Italian Mitrokhin commission received criticism during and after its existence <8>. According to an interview of former KGB agent Yevgeny Limarev published in La Repubblica<9>, Italian left-wing politicians were discredited through the Mitrokhin dossier, included Romano Prodi, Massimo D'Alema and Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio. Tellingly, Vasily Mitrokhin, the source of the Mitrokhin Archive, refused to meet Commission's members before his death<10>.
On December 1, 2006<8> several Italian newspapers published interceptions of telephone calls between Paolo Guzzanti and Mario Scaramella, a consultant on the Mitrokhin Commission, who became involved in the events surrounding the death of KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in Great Britain. In the interceptions, Guzzanti declared that the Mitrokhin Commission's unstated goal was to depict Romano Prodi as tied to the KGB, and financed by Moscow. This was meant to discredit him. Scaramella, according to the interceptions, was to collect false witnesses among KGB refugees in Europe to support this aim.
Recently the Italian parliament instituted a new commission to investigate about Mitrokhihn Commission<9>.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive