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LONDON - Former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko may have survived a first attempt to poison him with radioactive polonium 210 more than two weeks before receiving the dose that killed him, the BBC reported today.
"How to poison a spy", a documentary by the BBC's Panorama programme, said
a first attempt may have occurred on Oct. 16 last year at the Itsu sushi restaurant in London's Piccadilly.
Itsu first came to attention in the investigation into Litvinenko's murder because of a meeting he held there with Italian contact Mario Scaramella on Nov. 1, the day the Russian fell violently ill.
But the BBC said radioactive contamination discovered there by investigators was in a different part of the restaurant from where Litvinenko and Scaramella were sitting.
It said the traces were "most likely" at the seats where Litvinenko had met two Russian businessmen, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, at Itsu on Oct. 16.
Scaramella told the Panorama programme, due to be broadcast on Monday evening: "I know they closed (the restaurant) because they found the polonium, but (it) seems it was not in the place where we (were) seated. So lots of things must be clarified. Where we (were) seated there is no polonium."
The murder of Litvinenko, a former security agent who had become an outspoken dissident and Kremlin critic in exile, has developed into the most mysterious and gripping espionage case since the Cold War.
The case has strained relations between Britain and Russia, with the Kremlin dismissing as ridiculous a deathbed statement by Litvinenko blaming President Vladimir Putin for his murder.
Lugovoi and Kovtun also met Litvinenko at London's Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1. Traces of radiation have been found there too, and eight staff and at least three guests of the hotel have tested positive for small doses of polonium.
Both the Russians strongly deny involvement in Litvinenko's death and have themselves received treatment at a Moscow hospital, although details of their state of health are unclear.
In the Panorama programme, Litvinenko's wife, Marina, became the latest of several people close to him to voice their suspicions he received the fatal polonium dose in a cup of tea he drank with his Russian contacts in a room at the Millennium.
The Times newspaper yesterday quoted Litvinenko's friend, former KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky, as saying the tea was made by a man introduced to Litvinenko as Vladislav.
Litvinenko believed "the water from the kettle was only lukewarm and that the polonium 210 was added, which heated the drink through radiation so he had a hot cup of tea. The poison would have showed up in a cold drink", Gordievsky said.
The Times said British police suspected "Vladislav" of being the killer. It said he arrived in London from Hamburg on Nov. 1 on the same flight as Kovtun, and his image had been recorded by security cameras at Heathrow airport on arrival.
Scotland Yard police declined to comment, saying they would not discuss details of the investigation.
- REUTERS