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Germany Has a Suspect in Litvinenko Killing
London police have established that political emigrant Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with Polonium-210 in his tea. A cup with traces of the radioactive substance was found in the bar of the Millennium Mayfair Hotel, where Litvinenko met with Russian businessmen on November 1. One of those businessmen, Dmitry Kovtun, who is a resident of Germany, has been named as a suspect in that case by the prosecutor's office of Hamburg.
Traces of Polonium were also found in the bar's dishwasher, The Daily Telegraph reports. Seven employees of the Pine Bar were found to have been subject to minor effects from the substance, and the British National Health Service is recommending that the 250 people who visited the bar on November 1 receive medical examination.
The main witness in the case of Litvinenko's death is the other businessman with whom Litvinenko met at the Pine Bar, Andrey Lugovoi. He remains hospitalized in Moscow and is to be interviewed by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office and Scotland Yard today. That interview has been delayed several times since the British investigators arrived in London on December 6. Kovtun has been interviewed twice in the presence of the British police. He is also hospitalized with symptoms of radiation poisoning.
German police have begun their own investigation of Litvinenko's death. Over the weekend, reports came to light that traces of Polonium were found in the apartment of Kovtun's former mother-in-law in Hamburg and in the BMW in which Kovtun, a German resident, traveled to the airport. Hamburg prosecutor Martin Henke stated yesterday that “there is a sufficient evidential basis today to suspect Dmitry Kovtun of being not only a victim of poisoning, but the poisoner as well.”
Kovtun is a victim in the case of the poisoning in London of “citizen of the Russian Federation Litvinenko” initiated by the Russian prosecutor's office last week. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said that Russian investigators are preparing to fly to London to question Litvinenko's friends and family as witnesses in the case. London-based Chechen separatist emissary Akhmed Zakaev stated that he was “ready to meet with anybody who is trying to conduct an objective investigation, and Russian investigators are no exception,” adding that he would express his opinion about who “liquidated” Litvinenko and why. Zakaev has repeatedly accused the Russian special services of responsibility for his death. Litvinenko's widow Marina feels differently, however. “I don't believe that they will tell the truth,” she said. She blames Russian authorities for her husband's death and will not cooperate with the Russian investigation.
Lawyer and former FSB employee Mikhail Trepashkin, who is serving a prison term for divulging state secrets, also believes that the Russian special services were involved in Litvinenko's death. In a letter he passed from the prison colony, he wrote “a very serious group was formed in the FSB at the highest level to get rid of Litvinenko and a number of other people, on the basis that those who are not for us are against us.'”
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All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 11, 2006
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