MOSCOW, Oct 31: An officer from Russia’s powerful Federal Anti-Narcotics Service has been fatally poisoned in Saint Petersburg, a spokesman for the agency said on Wednesday.

The officer and a former member of the anti-drugs agency were found dead on Saturday. “They were poisoned. We don’t know what with,” said the spokesman, Nikolai Kortashov.

He declined to give further details about the incident.

But the deaths come against the background of a fierce power struggle within Russia’s huge security forces ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections.

Earlier this month the tussle for influence erupted into the open when the head of the anti-drugs agency, Viktor Cherkesov, warned that the battle could “end up destroying” the security system.

He was responding to the dramatic arrest of several top officials from his agency by officers from the Federal Security Service — the successor to the Soviet KGB. That incident was seen by analysts as an attempt to rein in Cherkesov.—AFP