In an exclusive interview with SPIEGEL TV, Dmitry Kovtun, an associate of the murdered ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, has apologized for the trouble he has caused in Hamburg, where traces of radiation were found in his ex-wife's apartment earlier this week. Kovtun also insisted he had nothing to do with Litvinenko's death.
The only explanation he could provide was "that I brought the traces with me from London, where I met with Alexander Litvinenko on October 16, 17 and 18," he said. "The traces, as is generally known, last for a very long time, and when you travel around afterwards then you leave them everywhere," he added.
In the SPIEGEL TV telephone interview Tuesday evening, Kovtun said he felt guilty that he had caused so much trouble in Hamburg, his "favorite city." "Because of me all this unpleasantness has come to Germany," he said. "My family are themselves greatly affected by this."
Kovtun's ex-wife Marina Wall, her two small children, as well as her current partner were put under observation in a Hamburg hospital after experts found traces of the deadly radioactive isotope polonium 210 in their apartment. Police have established that Kovtun, who authorities say has had held an unlimited visa to live and work in Germany since the 1990s, visited Wall in October on his way to London.
The head of the hospital's nuclear medicine department Bernhard Leisner gave the four a provisional all-clear Tuesday, saying that none of them were showing any measurable traces of radioactivity. However a definitive answer could only be given after urine samples had been analyzed, he said, adding that the results would be ready within four or five days.
Kovtun had been reported to be seriously ill himself from radiation exposure. However he said in the interview that he was currently in a Moscow clinic and was feeling better every day, with his radiation levels almost back to normal. "The results are very good, and I hope to be let out of hospital by the end of the week," he said.
Kovtun is being investigated on suspicion of illegally handling radioactive material, Hamburg's chief prosecutor Martin Köhnke said earlier this week. There was "a reasonable basis for suspicion that he may not just be a victim but could also be a perpetrator", Köhnke said.
German officials also found radiation traces in a house in Pinneberg in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein which belongs to Kovtun's former mother-in-law, in a car used to collect him from Hamburg airport on October 28, and on a document he touched.
A prosecutor said that one possible explanation for the radiation was that while "packaging or transporting" the polonium before the London meeting, Kovtun had accidentally touched it.
However, the German authorities said the evidence did not necessarily mean Kovtun had carried polonium from Moscow to London via Hamburg in order to poison Litvinenko. He may have just been contaminated by the material and carried traces with him, they said.
Investigators are assuming that Kovtun had the radioactive substance in his body when he arrived in Hamburg on October 28 on a flight from Moscow. The substance is relatively harmless outside the body, but extremely poisonous if it is breathed in, swallowed or absorbed through a wound.
Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi, who also met with Litvinenko in the bar of the Millennium Hotel in London on Nov. 1, have denied involvement in the ex-spy's death. British investigators are currently assuming that Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium 210 in the hotel bar. The former KGB spy -- who subsequently worked for the KGB's successor, the FSB -- died on Nov. 23 in a London hospital.
An official German request for legal assistance in the case has been sent to Moscow, police spokesman Ralf Meyer said. He added that Hamburg investigators were working with a Scotland Yard officer who arrived Monday. "We hope to get from him knowledge about the information that British officials have obtained in Moscow," he said. However Moscow officials are reported to not be forthcoming, and German investigators have not been given access to the Aeroflot plane in which Kovtun traveled from Moscow to Hamburg.
Meanwhile international police agency Interpol has also now become involved in the investigation. The head of Interpol's Russian office said Tuesday the 186-country organization had been asked to improve the flow of information between the UK, Russia and Germany.
"Interpol will be called on, and is already being called on, for the speedy exchange of information between various countries," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Interpol's Russian office chief Timur Lakhonin as saying. A spokeswoman for the French-based Interpol noted the case was international and "Interpol can therefore offer and provide international assistance between the countries."
British investigators have been sent to Russia to question people who met Litvinenko, and Russian newspapers have reported that Russian prosecutors might be preparing to fly to London to conduct interviews.
Dmitry Kovtun (file photo from Nov. 24): "I feel guilty."
He did not know what kind of documents but said they "could confirm the involvement of certain people in this killing."
German authorities are also investigating possible clues about illegal nuclear smuggling on German territory. "As well as all other theories as to the background of this crime, we are also taking seriously the possibility that Litvinenko's death could be connected to nuclear smuggling," a security official told the German daily Berliner Zeitung in its Wednesday edition. He admitted there wasn't any "really watertight evidence" yet, but he said secret service officials were not ruling out the possibility that polonium was smuggled via Germany to London in order to be sold there.
"We know that in recent years there has been a need for nuclear material in terrorist circles," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "It's not completely absurd" that Litvinenko's alleged contacts in the smuggling business could be involved, he said, adding that they were observing smuggling circles "very intensively." Nevertheless he said there had not been a single case of polonium 210 being offered for sale on the black market up until now, as the material is too expensive.
The case has soured relations between the UK and Russia and sparked memories of the Cold War. In a statement associates released after his death, Litvinenko accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his killing. The Kremlin denies any involvement.
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