By Shannon Smiley and Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 11, 2006; A13
HAMBURG, Dec. 10 -- German prosecutors said Sunday that they are investigating a Russian businessman for the illegal handling of a radioactive substance in the days after he flew to Germany from Russia and before he left to meet a former Russian internal security agent in London. The development is the strongest indication so far that the plot to poison Alexander Litvinenko in London originated in Moscow.
At a news conference in this port city, German officials said Dmitry Kovtun, who reportedly lies sick in a Moscow hospital, flew to Hamburg from Moscow on Oct. 28 before heading to London on Nov. 1, the day he met Litvinenko at a bar at the Millennium Hotel.
Hamburg's chief prosecutor, Martin Koehnke, said traces of radioactivity found in and around Hamburg and linked to Kovtun's movements before Nov. 1 suggested that he carried the substance to Germany. Koehnke said it was still possible that Kovtun was merely present when polonium-210 was "packaged in Moscow," but German investigators are convinced that he was in contact with the deadly isotope before he met Litvinenko.
"There is probable cause for the initial suspicion that he might have brought the substance with him outside his body to Hamburg, and that he may not only be a victim but could also be a perpetrator," Koehnke said at the news conference in Hamburg police headquarters.
Bolstering that assertion, Thomas Menzel, a police officer leading the investigation, said there is no evidence that Kovtun had returned to Germany after the London meeting with Litvinenko, all but ruling out the possibility, as Kovtun has claimed, that he first came into contact with a radioactive substance at the meeting with Litvinenko.
"We cannot be absolutely sure at the moment, but there has been no evidence to suggest that he returned to Hamburg," Menzel said.
"He is considered to be a suspect," German police said in a statement.
German radiation experts said Sunday that they had confirmed the presence of polonium-210, the substance that killed Litvinenko, at two locations in Germany and were 95 percent certain that traces found at other locations had come from that radioactive isotope. Final tests were needed to confirm its presence at some locations, German officials said. Officials did not specify exactly where the polonium-210 had been found.
Menzel said Kovtun, a Soviet army veteran and business consultant who had lived in Germany for 12 years, flew to Hamburg from Moscow on an Aeroflot flight.
"Aeroflot is not available to us. It is probable that he was already contaminated when he flew on the plane," Menzel said. "We have not received any answers to our questions so far" from Russian authorities.
The Germans have dubbed their investigation "The Third Man," though officials did not explain the reference to the Graham Greene mystery. More than 170 police officers are working on the case, along with members of the federal border police, the federal criminal police and radiation protection officers.
The killing of Litvinenko, which Scotland Yard has classified a murder case, had already led to some deterioration in relations between Britain and Russia, but it now has the potential to impact the wider relationship between the European Union and Russia. Critics of President Vladimir Putin have accused the Kremlin of complicity in the killing, allegations that the Kremlin rejected as absurd amid repeated assertions that the polonium almost certainly did not originate in Russia.
The German allegations, however, will throw a fresh spotlight on the Russian investigation of the case. The Russian prosecutor general's office has opened its own inquiry into Litvinenko's death and said it was investigating Kovtun's poisoning as attempted murder.
Attempts to reach Russian officials at the Kremlin and the prosecutor general's office Sunday night were unsuccessful.
The German disclosures indicate that Kovtun was "with the murder weapon before Nov. 1," said Alex Goldfarb, who has been acting as a spokesman for the Litvinenko family in London. But he said Kovtun "had no motive to kill" Litvinenko, so the question remains, "Who hired him and equipped him?"
"It is clear all the tracks lead to Moscow," he said.
Kovtun, 41, first met Litvinenko on Oct. 16 in London, where the two were introduced by another Russian, Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB agent who attended a military academy with Kovtun in the 1980s. The three discussed possible business deals involving British companies interested in investing in the Russian market, according to a joint interview with Kovtun and Lugovoy on Echo Moskva radio in late November.
Both Litvinenko and Lugovoy at various times had close ties to exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, a declared enemy of Putin. Lugovoy was head of security for a television channel in Moscow owned by Berezovsky before he fled Russia in 2000 after clashing with Putin. And Litvinenko became a part of Berezovsky's circle in London when he fled Russia after accusing former colleagues in the Federal Security Service, or FSB, of corruption. His allegations had led Russian authorities to press criminal charges against him.
The three Russians met on Nov. 1 at the Millennium Hotel bar in central London. Seven hotel workers have tested positive for exposure to a radioactive substance. An Italian who met separately with Litvinenko the same day has also tested positive for radiation exposure, as has Litvinenko's wife.
Both Kovtun and Lugovoy have denied any involvement in Litvinenko's death.
Laying out a chronology of some of Kovtun's movements, German officials said he landed in Hamburg after flying from Moscow on Oct. 28. He was picked up in a BMW, which has tested positive for radiation, German investigators said.
On Oct. 29, Kovtun spent the night in Haselau, about 16 miles north of Hamburg, at the home of his former mother-in-law. The BMW was found at that location, German officials said, and initial tests detected radiation in the house.
On Oct. 30, Kovtun went to an administrative office for foreigners in Hamburg. Radiation has been detected on his file card, which he signed, German officials said. Neither the employee in the room nor the room itself tested positive. Kovtun has a German residence permit. He was still registered as a Hamburg resident, but police said he had not lived permanently at his listed address in an apartment building on Erzbergerstrasse for a couple of years.
Kovtun told Echo Moskva that he had started working as a business consultant in Moscow and that an enterprise had led to his discussions with Litvinenko.
Kovtun's former wife lives in the same building on Erzbergerstrasse where he was registered. On Oct. 31, Kovtun spent the night on her couch. Police said they found traces of radiation on the couch.
At 6:40 a.m. on Nov. 1, Kovtun took a Germanwings flight from Hamburg to London. The plane was examined yesterday at the Cologne-Bonn airport, but no contamination was detected. Police, explaining that apparent anomaly, said that had Kovtun showered, he might have washed away any trace. They also noted that the plane had been thoroughly cleaned since Kovtun traveled on it.
Finn reported from Moscow. Correspondent Mary Jordan in London contributed to this report.