Polonium Traced to 4 New Sites

Litvinenko Probe Finds Radiation in London Club, Restaurant

LONDON, Aug. 17 -- British authorities on Friday disclosed four new London locations, including a Moroccan restaurant and a lap-dancing club, at which investigators have found the kind of radiation that killed former Russian intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko in November.

The investigation stretched over 47 locations, the Westminster City Council said. The newly disclosed sites were Hey Jo, a lap-dancing club in central London; Litvinenko's personal Mercedes; Dar Marrakesh, the restaurant; and a gray Mercedes taxi.

Litvinenko, an exile and harsh critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died at age 43, three weeks after polonium-210 was apparently slipped into his tea in the bar of a London hotel.

Investigators have been aided by a series of positive readings for polonium-210 radiation, marking a trail along which the killer or killers and victim moved. Of the 47 locations examined, including eight aircraft, radiation was found at 27 sites, the Westminster council said.

At the Hey Jo nightclub, traces of radiation were found on seats, cushions and cubicle doors, officials said. At the Moroccan cafe, traces were found on the fabric of a hookah pipe's handle and on a cushion cover.

Dave West, owner of Hey Jo, said in an interview that Litvinenko "came in one night with about two or three men, all Russian. I said hello, shook their hands, like I do to many customers." West said that the club was popular with Russian businessmen and that he had met Litvinenko on several occasions.

He said that investigators were slow in locating his club; they arrived there about seven weeks after Litvinenko died, after tracing his credit card receipts.

The Westminster council, the London authority in control of the overall health response to the murder, said it spent $500,000 in checking and clearing contaminated sites. Scotland Yard said its bill for the investigation was $1.93 million, on top of officers' salaries. The Health Protection Agency, which took urine samples from more than 700 people in Britain to test for radiation exposure and followed up with 673 individuals overseas, said it spent about $4 million.

The case has badly strained relations between Russia and Britain. Britain's Crown Prosecution Service has demanded the extradition of Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard, as a suspect in the murder. Lugovoy denies the allegations. Russia says it has no intention of handing him over, on grounds that its constitution bans it from extraditing its citizens. In a tit-for-tat standoff over the case, Britain and Russia each expelled four of the other's diplomats.