British Find Radiation at 12 Locations

By Kevin Sullivan and Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 1, 2006

LONDON, Nov. 30 -- The trail of radiation found in London expanded to 12 sites Thursday, and British authorities turned their attention to two Russian aircraft in their efforts to track the poison that killed a former Russian intelligence officer, a British government minister told Parliament on Thursday.

The four newly disclosed sites include two hospitals where former spy Alexander Litvinenko was treated, the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel in central London and a car found in north London, according to Scotland Yard. Police released no further details about the car; Litvinenko lived in north London, and radiation was also discovered in his home.

On Thursday, a plane belonging to the Russian airline Transaero was checked for radiation and cleared after it landed at London's Heathrow Airport. British Home Secretary John Reid told Parliament that "there is one other Russian plane that we know of that we think we may be interested in."

Reid said that about 24 venues had been examined and that it was probable that additional sites would be tested for radiation as police "continue to trace possible witnesses and examine Mr. Litvinenko's movements."

The former officer in the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the domestic successor to the KGB, died Nov. 23 of exposure to the radioactive substance polonium-210. He was a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and in a deathbed statement accused the Kremlin of ordering his assassination. Russian authorities have labeled that charge as absurd.

Former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar, who suddenly fell ill in Dublin last Friday, continued to recuperate in a Moscow clinic Thursday, according to his spokesman and an Irish diplomat. His daughter repeated earlier statements that her father could have been poisoned. But doctors have not confirmed that, and Irish authorities, who are conducting an inquiry into the illness, said they had no evidence of it.

Gaidar discharged himself from a Dublin hospital and then spent Saturday at the Russian Embassy in Dublin before returning to Moscow.

British police have released little information about the locations where the radiation has been detected in London. But the expansion of the probe to the examination of aircraft that flew between London and Moscow, among other destinations, and a hotel that Litvinenko apparently did not visit take the inquiry beyond the movements of the former spy.

Litvinenko became sick Nov. 1 after several meetings in London's upscale Mayfair neighborhood. Contamination had already been discovered in a Japanese restaurant where he met an Italian academic, a hotel bar where he met three Russian men, and three office buildings.

Among the office buildings was one at 7 Down St. used by Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian tycoon who fell out with Putin in 2000 and has waged a long-distance campaign against him since then. Litvinenko was close to Berezovsky, who is wanted in Russia on numerous charges, among them calling for the violent overthrow of the government. He denies the allegations.

Another building, at 25 Grosvenor St., is the office of an international security company. Litvinenko visited both sites Nov. 1.

Police have not disclosed what connection, if any, Litvinenko had with a building at 58 Grosvenor St., where radiation was also detected. Traces of radiation from polonium-210 were found in a ground-floor office there, according to a two-page flier the British Health Protection Agency gave to employees.

Dated last Friday, it says the office "has now been closed and is the subject of a police investigation." It also notes that "very small amounts of polonium 210" were found in the reception area on a sofa, which has been removed, as well as "two other sites" in the building.

"It is not yet clear how it entered the premises," says the flier, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post.

Andrei Lugovoy, one of three Russian businessmen who met Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel bar, told the Russian newspaper Kommersant that he had flown home to Moscow Nov. 3 on one of the three British Airways aircraft now grounded. Lugovoy, another former Russian intelligence officer, met Litvinenko with Dmitry Kovtun, who told Echo Moskvy radio last week that he was a business consultant in Moscow. Lugovoy once worked for Berezovsky in Moscow.

A third man, Vyacheslav Sikolenko, who runs an association of security companies in Moscow, said in a broadcast by the radio station that he exchanged a brief greeting with Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel.

The Russian visitors, who had studied together in the 1980s at a Moscow military college, attended a soccer match here between teams from Moscow and London in the European championship league.

Lugovoy said that the meeting lasted 20 or 30 minutes and that no one ate. He also said Litvinenko did not drink anything. Kovtun said he was interested in meeting Litvinenko because "he had serious contacts with serious British companies which wanted to get into the Russian market but had experienced difficulty with this."

Lugovoy, who met with British investigators at the British Embassy in Moscow, has denied any involvement in Litvinenko's death. He has checked into a Moscow clinic, according to news reports there.

Lugovoy was an official bodyguard in the early 1990s to Gaidar, the former prime minister.

Mario Scaramella, an Italian who was on the staff of an Italian parliamentary investigation that looked into the KGB, also met with Litvinenko that day. He has denied any involvement in the poisoning and said he has been tested and shows no signs of radiation contamination.

A British coroner opened an inquest into Litvinenko's death Thursday. It was adjourned after a few minutes to allow police to continue their investigation.

Andrew Reid, who presided at the coroner's court, said three pathologists would take part in an autopsy Friday at the Royal London Hospital -- one representing the government, another for Litvinenko's wife and the third as an independent specialist in case there is a later criminal prosecution.

The FBI has agreed to participate in the poisoning probe at the request of British investigators, a spokesman in Washington said. FBI experts in weapons of mass destruction will provide "technical assistance only," Special Agent Richard Kolko said.

At the moment, the case has no apparent connection to the United States or to U.S. citizens, officials said.

British health officials have repeatedly stressed that the radiation's threat to public health is low and that radiation from polonium-210 must be inhaled or ingested to be dangerous. But more than 1,700 people have called a special National Health Service hotline established to handle questions about the issue. And 5,500 people have called a British Airways hotline.

Finn reported from Moscow. Special correspondent Karla Adam in London and staff writer Dan Eggen in Washington contributed to this report.