By Mary Jordan and Sarah Delaney
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 2, 2006; A08

LONDON, Dec. 1 -- The radioactive substance that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko has contaminated his wife and an Italian security consultant he met the day he fell ill, British officials and a Litvinenko family friend said Friday.

Officials said that neither was showing symptoms of poisoning from the substance, polonium-210. Although thousands of people have called hotlines worried about possible exposure, Mario Scaramella and Marina Litvinenko are the only two who have tested positive for the radiation since Litvinenko's mysterious death on Nov. 23.

British authorities have detected traces of polonium-210 in at least 12 sites around London and on two British Airways jetliners. A third plane was returning to Moscow on Friday for checks. Investigators are trying to use those findings to determine where the poison came from and who transported it.

Scaramella, who met with Litvinenko at a sushi restaurant on Nov. 1, was the more severely affected. Health officials said he had "significant" amounts of radiation in his body, and he was hospitalized Friday awaiting further tests this weekend.

"He is currently well and shows no symptoms of radiation poisoning," Keith Patterson, a doctor at University College Hospital, told reporters outside the hospital Friday night. "Tests have detected polonium-210 in Mr. Scaramella's body, but at a considerably lower level than Mr. Litvinenko."

Alex Goldfarb, a family friend of the Litvinenkos, said in an interview that Marina Litvinenko, 44, a ballet teacher, was told by doctors that "minuscule levels" of polonium-210 had been found in her urine.

"For three days when he was home and vomiting, she was taking care of him," Goldfarb said. He said she was not particularly worried about her health, but noted that because the poison is "so unique, its long-term effects are not known."

"The levels are not significant enough to result in any illness in the short term," the Health Protection Agency said in a statement that identified the contaminated person only as an "adult family member" of Litvinenko. It added, "The results are reassuring in that any increased risk in the long term is likely to be very small."

Nick Priest, a British scientist and expert in polonium-210, said in an interview that "everyone has a different resistance to radiation." He said the worry is that it might cause "a depletion of bone marrow" and an increased risk of cancer.

Litvinenko's unexplained death has created Cold War-like tensions between London and Moscow. Litvinenko was an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his friends say that before his death he accused Putin of ordering his murder. The Kremlin has dismissed those allegations as "nonsense."

In Moscow, a former KGB agent who met Litvinenko on Nov. 1 at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square, within sight of the U.S. Embassy, denied any involvement in Litvinenko's death.

Scaramella said at a news conference in Rome last week that he showed Litvinenko e-mails during their meeting that warned their lives might be in danger.

Sergio Rastrelli, a lawyer for Scaramella, was asked in a televised interview in Italy on Friday whether Scaramella was a witness or suspect in the case. "He is absolutely a witness, and now, unfortunately, he is also a person who has been offended by a crime committed by a third party."

In Russia, human rights activists said a letter written by a former Russian intelligence agent claimed that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, had established death squads to kill Litvinenko and other critics of the Kremlin.

"Back in 2002, I warned Litvinenko that they had formed a team to kill him," the letter said. Activists said the letter was written by Mikhail Trepashkin, a former officer of the KGB and its successor, the FSB.

Trepashkin was sentenced to four years in prison in 2005 for divulging state secrets. Before his arrest, Trepashkin was investigating the possible role of the FSB in a series of apartment bombings in 1999 in which hundreds of people died -- a subject about which Litvinenko had written a book. Amnesty International and other human rights groups have said Trepashkin was jailed to prevent further investigation into the bombings.

Police in Sussex, south of London, said they assisted Scotland Yard and the Health Protection Agency in an investigation at the Ashdown Park Hotel in East Sussex on Friday. British and Italian media said Scaramella had stayed at the hotel recently and that authorities were looking for traces of radiation.

Matthew Long, deputy general manager at the Ashdown Park Hotel, said in an interview that police found "no evidence of radiation" after searching for hours. Long said the investigation was started because of concern that "we had a guest who might have been suffering from radiation."

Pathologists in protective gear conducted a postmortem exam on Litvinenko's body Friday. Results are not expected to be announced for several days. The BBC reported that because of the radiation, his remains will be buried in a sealed coffin.

Pat Troop, chief executive of the Health Protection Agency, said the risk to others who came into casual contact with Litvinenko remains negligible.

Delaney reported from Rome. Correspondents Kevin Sullivan in London and Peter Finn in Moscow contributed to this report.