Dmitry Kovtun, a witness in the case of the poisoning of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, claims to have been poisoned himself.
Photo: AP
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Date of Litvinenko's Poisoning Moved to October
Businessman Dmitry Kovtun, a witness in the poisoning of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, stated in an interview by telephone with German television yesterday that the traces of radioactivity found on him were the result of his contact with Litvinenko in the middle of October. Kovtun is now hospitalized in Specialized Hospital No. 6 in Moscow with symptoms of radiation sickness.
He has thus contradicted the main theory in the case, that Litvinenko was poisoned in the bar of the Mayfair Millennium Hotel in London on November 1. Kovtun claimed that he was exposed to Polonium-210 when he met with Litvinenko in London on October 16, 17 and 18. He has been declared a suspect in the case by German police, who found traces of radiation in the places in Germany Kovtun spent the nights of October 28, when he arrived there from Moscow, through November 1, when he left for London.
Kovtun's friend and business partner Andrey Lugovoi, who is considered the main witness in the case by the British, and who is now in the same hospital with Kovtun, has also advanced this story. He told Kommersant that that he and Kovtun met Litvinenko in the office of the Erinys Co. on Grosvenor St. in London on October 16. Police found traces of Polonium-210 there in November but, Lugovoi claims, those traces could only be dated to October 16, since “the meeting at Erinys on November 2 did not take place because Litvinenko felt badly and could not come.”
Police in Hamburg stated yesterday that the Dritter Mann (Third Man) investigative group, formed especially to investigate Kovtun's case, is working closely with Scotland Yard representatives who flew to Hamburg on Monday. Hamburg prosecutor Martin Kenke has sent an official request for cooperation to the Russian Prosecutor General's Office but not received a reply from it. Nor have Hamburg police received a reply to an enquire about Kovtun's location and the state of his health sent on the weekend. A spokesman for the Russian Prosecutor General's Office stated that no request for cooperation has been received by it from Germany, and that “the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation is prepared to take all measures of cooperation envisaged by Russian legislation and international agreements.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 14, 2006
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