German police suspect radioactivity source at Hamburg flat
By Suzie Gorani,WNS Berlin Correspondent
BERLIN - Germany police have said they had found "indications" of a source of radioactivity in a flat in Hamburg used by Dmitry Kovtun, a contact of the poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Police discovered "indications leading us to believe that there has been a source of radioactivity" in the flat, a police spokesman said. He said Saturday there "no danger" to other residents of the building. Police began searching the flat on Friday for traces of the radioactive substance polonium 210.
Investigators believe Kovtun, a 41-year-old businessman, could have been in contact with the highly radioactive substance which killed Litvinenko on November 23. Kovtun, one of three Russians who met Litvinenko in London on November 1, shortly before the former intelligence agent fell ill, was reported Friday to be suffering from radiation sickness. Russia's Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed medical official in Moscow as saying that Kovtun had briefly fallen into a coma Thursday but had since recovered consciousness.
The death of Litvinenko from polonium poisoning, which British authorities are treating as murder, has prompted a media outcry, heightened by allegations from the dead agent's friends that he was killed on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hamburg police appealed to "people who had any contact" with Kovtun to come forward. A special telephone number was available for concerned members of the public to call.
posted by wnsworld @ 1:29 PM
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