DOUBTS have emerged this week over whether gardai are to continue to investigate the possible poisoning of former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar at a Maynooth function last week, following conflicting reports in relation to what may have caused his mysterious illness.

Gaidar was rushed to James Connolly Memorial Hospital, Blanchardstown, before being transferred back to Moscow after he became suddenly ill the day after the death from radiation poisoning of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in a London hospital.

The flurry of excitement that Gaidar may have been targeted on Irish soil . . . with indications that the poisonings of the ex-PM and Litvinenko could be connected . . . increased when Russian newspapers last week carried the comments of close friends of the politician who suggested that sinister elements had caused Gaidar's sickness.

Both an aide of the former prime minister and his daughter, Maria, told the Russian press that they believed that Gaidar, who now heads a toplevel economics think-thank, had been poisoned after no other apparent cause of his mysterious illness could be found.

However, these claims have been diminished after it emerged that radiation poisoning had been ruled out . . . leading to speculation that he contracted a bug. Gaidar's elderly mother, Ariana, later told a Russian newspaper that her son suffered from hypertension.

As of yesterday afternoon, however, gardai said there was no change to the status of their investigation into the mysterious illness that afflicted the 50year-old former politician while he was attending a conference at Maynooth university on Friday 23 November. The garda press office described the investigation as "ongoing, with no major update as yet".

Gaidar's spokesman, Valerie Natarov, remained insistent in recent comments that his boss had been poisoned, although it was unclear whether he was suggesting that the poisoning had been a deliberate act or whether he could have been referring to the contraction of food poisoning. The spokesman added that Gaidar had no known enemies and was not active in political life for almost a decade, apart from writing books on economic reform. He said that he had spoken to Gaidar, who remains in an undisclosed Moscow hospital as doctors attempt to determine the cause of his illness. "It is clear that his health is recovering, " Natarov said.

The doubt in relation to the status of the garda investigation . . . given Gaidar's gradual recovery from illness and the delay in confirming what if any poisoning may have occurred . . . comes as another victim has been linked to the fatal poisoning of the ex-spy Litvinenko.

An anti-terror unit from London's metropolitan police force is examining the possibility that Litvinenko's death may have been part of a double-murder plot, after toxicology reports showed that the Italian security expert Marco Scaramella is also suffering from a "significant amount" of radiation poisoning linked to polonium-210, the same substance that caused the spy's death.

A member of Litvinenko's immediate family . . . though not his wife or son . . . also suffered radiation poisoning, though in minuscule amounts.

Scaramella met with Litvinenko on 1 November at the Itsu sushi bar in London, the day before the former Kremlin agent fell ill, but reports yesterday in the UK press suggested that Scaramella's level of infection was too great to have been caused by casual contact. Litvinenko ate lunch at the sushi bar but Scaramella only drank from a bottle of water, complicating the source of the double poisoning for investigators.

Scaramella had taken part previously in a Rome investigation into KGB dirty tricks and there are indications that Litvinenko may have been shadowed by a team of assassins for some time prior to his poisoning. Detectives are reportedly investigating numerous links that Litvinenko had with businessmen, former agents and security operatives, in a bid to crack the case. The former Kremlin agent moved to London six years ago and had been an outspoken critic of president Vladimir Putin. Litvinenko penned a book two years ago accusing Putin of planning bomb attacks that were later blamed on Chechen rebels.

Litvinenko had amassed a long list of risky associations with expatriate Russian criminals and industrialists since moving to London, it is believed, all of whom are being scrutinised by London police to determine if any of the lucrative deals he was connected to may have led him to fall foul of one or more of these associates.

While Gaidar's mysterious illness while at the Maynooth conference may have ended with the former politician's gradual recovery, there is one clear link to both himself and Litvinenko.

Andrei Lugovoy, an ex-KGB officer, met with Litvinenko the day before he fell ill. Lugovoy was also Gaidar's personal bodyguard during the 1990s, although reports indicate that the two men had not met in over four years. While there is no evidence to suggest that he had anything to do with the poisoning of the former spy, it does serve to further complicate investigations by London police into Litvinenko's suspicious death, Scaramella's poisoning and the garda probe into the mysterious illness contracted on Irish soil by the former prime minister Gaidar.