The spy's father, Walter Litvinenko, said in an interview published recently that his son - who was born an Orthodox Christian but had close links to Muslims in Chechnya - made the request as he lay dying in University College Hospital.

"He said ’I want to be buried according to Muslim tradition’," Mr Litvinenko told Moscow's Kommersant daily.

"I said, ’Well son, as you wish. We already have one Muslim in our family - my daughter is married to a Muslim. The important thing is to believe in the Almighty. God is one.’"

The Radio station Echo Moskvy reported that Litvinenko was read the Yasin surah, or prayer, and given Islamic death rites by an imam invited from London to the dying spy's hospital bedside.

Under Islamic guidelines, Mr Litvinenko's body should have been specially bathed. Prayers should have been read over his open coffin. But Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, of the Muslim Parliament, said the risk of contamination was too great to respect his last wishes at the funeral held at Regent's Park mosque in London.

Nor could mosque leaders give him a traditional Muslim burial wrapped in swaddling instead of a coffin.
Instead, a heavy-duty oak coffin with special seals was made on orders from the Health Protection Agency. 'His father was told the body could not come here because of the radioactivity,' Mr Siddiqui said.