Film on poisoned Russian spy at Cannes

A film on Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, whose murder last year caused a divide between Moscow and the West, will be shown as a late entry at the Cannes festival.

A documentary on Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, whose murder last year caused a growing rift between Moscow and the West, is to be shown as a late entry at the Cannes film festival, organisers said.

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The film, entitled Rebellion. the Litvinenko case by directors Andrei Nekrasov and Olga Konskaya will be part of the festival's official selection.

Litvinenko died an agonising death in a London hospital after ingesting a fatal dose of polonium 210, a radioactive isotope.

In a letter dictated on his hospital deathbed, Litvinenko, who had acquired British citizenship weeks before he was poisoned, accused the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin of his murder.

Moscow dismissed the accusation as ridiculous and denies that its security services were involved in any way.

British police have said they want to try former Russian spy Andrei Luguvoy for his murder, setting London on course for a diplomatic standoff with the Kremlin which is considered unlikely to agree to his extradition.