Mystery over ‘death’ of turncoat who Russian leader predicted would ‘end in a bad way’
Russian news agency claims intelligence chief who exposed glamour spy Anna Chapman has died in exile in the US
RUSSIA’S 'worst traitor' has reportedly died in exile living in America six years after Vladimir Putin predicted he would "end in a bad way".
Foreign intelligence colonel Alexander Poteyev exposed glamour spy Anna Chapman and her colleagues in one of the most explosive betrayals to Russia.
He fled to the US shortly before the flame-haired undercover operative and her "sleeper cell" were exposed by the FBI.
When Chapman and her fellow agents were exposed, Putin said: "It is a result of betrayal, and traitors always end in a bad way. Usually from a drinking habit, or from drugs, right in the street."
Reports of Poteyev's death come six months after a British judge ruled the Russian President 'probably approved' the murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned in London in 2006.
Mr Litvinenko - who had accused Putin on his death bed - was killed by two FSB spies who slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea pot at a Mayfair hotel after he fled to the UK.
Russian news agency Interfax reported today that Porteyev, who is widely known as one of modern Russia’s worst trainers, had died.
Chapman, 29, and nine other sleeper agents known as "illegals" were captured in America in 2010 after they had been under US intelligence surveillance for several years.
After returning home in a spy swap, Chapman, 34, denounced Poteyev at a closed doors trial in Moscow where he was convicted in absentia to 25 years in jail for high treason.
An anonymous source said: "According to some information, Poteyev died in the USA. At the moment this information is being checked."
Interfax added: "A second source has confirmed receiving the similar information from abroad but he did not exclude that 'it can be deceptive information, aimed at making people forget about the traitor".
There have been no reports from the US that 64-year-old Porteyev has passed away.
The Russian report gave no cause of death.
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Putin's spokesman said today: "It's not the Kremlin's matter."
Russian senator and ex-spy Igor Mozorov said of Porteyev “nobody needed him” and he doubted an operation to fake the defector's death.
Before fleeing to the US, Porteyev was deputy head of a section of Vladimir Putin's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, that handed Russian "illegal agents" in the US.
During the hearing against Porteyev in the Moscow district military court, it was revealed he had sent his wife Marina a message reading: "Try to take this calmly: I'm not going away for a while, I'm going away forever. I did not want to, but I had to. I will start a new life. I'll try to help the children."
Porteyev, Chapman's senior handler, fled via Belarus to Ukraine and Germany before being given a safe haven in the US for whom he had secretly spied as a double agent for a number of years.
Chapman told his trial in Moscow that she was arrested in New York after a US agent posing as a Russian spy had identified himself with a code which only Porteyev and one other source could have known.
Days earlier he had left Moscow for the West, she said.
Porteyev had two children and some reports say they were working in the US before his defection.
Chapman and nine other sleeper agents - known as "illegals" - were detained in 2010 after several years under surveillance by the FBI.
They were later swapped for four men imprisoned in Russia who had allegedly spied for MI6 and the CIA. An 11th agent was arrested in Cyprus but then skipped bail and disappeared.