Special Report: Ex-Russian spy dies

Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.(Xinhua/AFP Photo) Photo Gallery >>>

    BERLIN, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- A German radiation expert doubted Monday that Russia involved in the polonium-210 poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvenenko.

    Sebastian Pflugbeil, president of the German Society for Radiation Protection, told ARD national television that he would not rule out the possibility that the poisoners had deliberately strewn traces of the isotope in London and Hamburg to mislead people.

    "If you keep polonium in a tightly shut vial, you can transport it without contamination and don't leave any dirty trail," he said, adding it was too obvious to be credible.

    "Either these killers were rank amateurs, or, and I think this is also plausible, a trail has been deliberately created to cast suspicion in a certain direction," Pflugbeil said.

    "What is remarkable here is the way it was done," he said, "Secret agents are normally trained to kill without leaving any evidence. But in this case, it's not just a trail. They have practically bulldozed a superhighway all the way to Moscow. They wanted to make a spectacle of it."

    Pflugbeil, a physicist who has previously studied how East German secret agents abuse radioactive material, said that he knew of no case in which secret services had used polonium to kill an opponent.

    German police had found on Saturday "indications" of radiation in Hamburg in Dmitry Kovtun's ex-wife's department. His ex-wife, two children and her new partner were contaminated with the highly radioactive substance.

    Doctors were trying to establish whether the substance has got into their body. They say if it did not penetrate into the body, there will be no life risk.

    Kovtun is a business man who met former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London on Nov. 1, the day the former Russian spy was believed to have fallen ill. Litvinenko died on Nov. 23 in London hospital, while Kovtun was reportedly ill.

    A team of German police and radiation experts are investigating into the case.