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Special Report: Ex-Russian spy
dies
BEIJING,
Dec. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- Four people were hospitalized in Hamburg Monday, on
suspicion they had been contaminated by polonium, the same radioactive substance
that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, The New York Times
reported.
The four had contact in Germany with Russian
businessman Dmitri Kovtun, who spent four days in Hamburg in late October before
flying to London, where he and two other Russian men met at a hotel
with Litvinenko on Nov. 1. Litvinenko fell ill later that day from
radiation poisoning and died several weeks later.
German prosecutors have started a criminal
investigation of Kovtun, who is reported to be in a Moscow hospital. They
suspected he may have illegally handled polonium and could also have left traces
of it after being contaminated himself.
Police confirmed Monday that evidence of
polonium was found on a seat in a BMW that picked up Kovtun at the
Hamburg airport on Oct. 28. There were also traces in a second car he used.
While in Hamburg, Kovtun slept for two nights in
the apartment of his former wife. Police said they detected radioactive traces
on a child's car seat, and in two bedrooms, suggesting that the ex-wife, her two
children and her boyfriend had been contaminated.
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Policemen secure the entrance of an
apartment building used by Dmitry Kovtun, a contact of the poisoned former
Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, in Hamburg, northern Germany, Dec. 11,
2006. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
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The four are not sick, according to Ulrike
Sweden, a police spokeswoman, and it will take a few days of tests to determine
whether they ingested the substance. She said there was no public health danger.
Andrei Lugovoi, another key figure in the case, was
questioned in Moscow on Monday by Russian and British detectives, Itar-Tass news
agency reported.
The British investigators arrived in Moscow on Dec.
4. They and their Russian colleagues interviewed Kovtun last week.
(Agencies)
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