MOSCOW, Dec 11: British police investigating the radiation poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko reportedly interviewed a key witness in Moscow on Monday as the trail in the widening mystery also took detectives to Hamburg.
Scotland Yard detectives met at an unidentified Moscow hospital with Andrei Lugovoi, an ex-KGB bodyguard and now owner of a drinks factory, the ITAR-TASS and Interfax news agencies said, quoting unnamed sources.
Officials from the Russian prosecutor’s office were taking part in the questioning, the reports said.At the same time, a British investigator also arrived in Hamburg, following the opening of a criminal case by German police against Dmitry Kovtun, a close associate of Lugovoi.
Lugovoi and Kovtun both met Litvinenko at the Millennium hotel in London’s upmarket Mayfair district for drinks on Nov 1, when the poisoning is believed to have taken place.
Litvinenko fell ill later that day and died on Nov 23 after an agonising sickness that baffled doctors until they detected a huge dose of the radioactive substance polonium 210 in his body.
German police said on Sunday that Kovtun had left a trail of polonium in Hamburg-- in a car, an office and his ex-wife’s house -- before flying to Britain and the meeting with Litvinenko.
Kovtun is being investigated for bringing polonium into Germany, though he has not been linked directly to Litvinenko’s killing, the leader of the German investigation into the case, Thomas Menzel, said.—AFP
