Kovtun radioactivity smeared people in Hamburg (2nd Roundup)

Dec 11, 2006, 17:28 GMT

Hamburg - The family of Dmitry Kovtun, the Russian businessman, who has been named in connection with the Alexander Litvinenko murder inquiry, were smeared with toxic polonium when Kovtun visited them, German police said Monday.

Thomas Menzel, heading a major police inquiry in Hamburg, said Kovtun's Russian-born ex-wife, Marina W, their two children aged three and one, and her new partner all showed signs of contamination.

The four were admitted Monday to a Hamburg hospital, where doctors would try over the next few days to establish whether the poison had entered their bodies. Scientists say there is less risk of harm, if polonium-210 remains on the skin only.

The disclosure adds to the mystery of why polonium-210 was on Kovtun's hands, spreading to many of the objects and people he touched during a five-day stay in Hamburg before a London meeting with Litvinenko.

British police have found several people in London who were contaminated with polonium, but none of them have fallen ill. Kovtun, 41, is now in a Moscow hospital, reportedly seriously ill from the poison.

The German police stress they do not yet know whether Kovtun was a poisoner or a victim of poisoning, but have opened an inquiry against him on suspicion of improper use of ionizing radiation, an offence under German law.

A liaison officer from the London police force, Scotland Yard, arrived Monday in Hamburg to help with the inquiry.

Scotland Yard is conducting a murder inquiry after establishing that Litvinenko was fed polonium-210, leading to his November 23 death. German police say murder is not formally part of their inquiry.

A team of 170 German police, assisted by government radiation scientists, has been collecting faint smudges of polonium-210 left by Kovtun on car seats, beds, bathroom fittings and government documents during a stay in Hamburg from October 28 to November 1.

The German federal government said it had no data on the case independent of the police inquiry.

'We haven't any separate information,' said a deputy government spokesman, Thomas Steg, in Berlin.

Russian businessmen Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi met on November 1 with Litvinenko in a London hotel, but have denied in the media that they poisoned the dissident. Both men are in Moscow hospitals.

Lugovoi and Litvinenko were former Russian agents, but there has been no confirmation whether Kovtun, 41, who is reportedly ill in a Moscow hospital, also served in the FSB spy service. He has a residence permit to live in Germany.

A Hamburg newspaper reported Monday that Kovtun did not use the apartment he gives as his official Hamburg address because it was sub-let to students, with Kovtun's ex-wife overseeing it.

The couple were officially divorced in mid-2006, the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper said. Marina W was born in Russia, but has obtained German citizenship. Her mother, Eleonora W, a Russian psychologist, lives in Germany and also accommodated Kovtun.

At the mother's home, an expensive thatched house in a village on the outskirts of Hamburg, scientists continued Monday their scans of furniture and of two cars in which Kovtun travelled during his stay.

One of the cars is a write-off after an accident, but police have not disclosed when or how it crashed. A neighbour said the damaged car had been towed to the property in a damaged state.

Menzel's police team, code-named 'The Third Man,' has appealed to Russian police to provide information about Kovtun's whereabouts and state of health.

'As of today we have still not got any answer,' said Menzel. He refused to answer questions about why this might be so.