Litvinenko’s family ‘persecuted by Berlusconi’

Silvio Berlusconi has been accused of persecuting the family of the murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Walter Litvinenko, the former KGB agent's father, says the Italian PM’s chummy relationship with Vladimir Putin must be behind repeated delays in processing his request for asylum in Italy where he now lives. And the 71-year-old says his family have been harassed by local police, their business closed down - and are now dependent on charity.

Alexander Litvinenko's 2006 murder, the most flagrant political killing since the cold war, caused a diplomatic rift between Russia and the UK which is yet to heal. A postmortem showed his death was caused by polonium-210 poisoning – it's thought the radioactive substance was slipped into his tea in the Millennium Hotel in London. An investigation by British police led to a request for the extradition of Russian national Andrei Lugovoi to the UK: the request was denied by Moscow.

In 2008, meanwhile, Walter Litvinenko decided it was no longer safe for him to stay in Russia. With his wife Lubya, he fled to Italy where their son Maxim had been working as a chef since 2001. They were joined later by their daughter Tatiana and her family.

The Litvinenkos applied for asylum and at the same time opened a restaurant in the coastal town Rimini, with Maxim in the kitchen. Two years later, their asylum request is still being considered, while the restaurant – La Terrazza – has been closed down by police who say one room lacked planning permission.

On 31 October last year, police burst into the restaurant complaining of loud music – though the family say all guests had left and they were quietly clearing up. Tatiana Litvinenko was manhandled by a policeman who, she says, grabbed her roughly by the arm. She said: “I struggled free. He then chased after me and pushed me from behind. I smashed my head on the marble floor. I lost consciousness.”

Their livelihood gone, the entire family of eight have been forced to move to a three-bedroom flat with no hot water or proper heating. On Sunday, they spent their last few euros on 10 eggs to make pancakes. They have no idea where next month's rent can be found and depend on bread and apples donated by a local church.

Walter Litvinenko is in no doubt who is to blame for their predicament. He told the Guardian yesterday: "We have fallen victim to a political game… All European governments have been flirting with Putin. Berlusconi's dependence on him, and on Russian gas, means that we don't get asylum.”

A spokesman for Silvio Berlusconi said that decisions about asylum requests had “nothing to do with personal relationships between leaders”. But there is no doubt that Berlusconi has a personal relationship with Putin, who was Russia's PM at the time of the Litvinenko assassination and is now its president. The two men have stayed in each other's homes, and Putin phoned Berlusconi last year when he was recovering in hospital after being attacked by a disgruntled voter with a gothic cathedral paperweight. He even sent the Italian leader a get well present: a Russian navy jacket. ·