Informed Speculation

The trial now leads to Moscow via a detour in Hamburg:

German authorities said today that they had found traces of the radioactive substance polonium in a car and two homes in Hamburg used by a Russian business associate of the murdered ex-K.G.B. agent Alexander V. Litvinenko a few days before the men met in London.

The discoveries are the first evidence in this tangled case that tie a specific person to the poison that killed Mr. Litvinenko, and German prosecutors said they had opened a criminal investigation of the man, Dmitri Kovtun, for the illegal handling of a radioactive substance.

“He may not just be a victim but could also be a perpetrator,” Martin Köhnke, the chief prosecutor of Hamburg, told reporters at a news conference there today.

Mr. Kovtun, 41, is in a hospital in Moscow, and there are conflicting reports about his health. The Russian news agency Interfax reported he was in critical condition, but his lawyer later disputed that.

Mr. Litvinenko fell ill after meeting in a London hotel on Nov. 1 with Mr. Kovtun and another Russian, Andrei Lugovoy, who is now also reported to be ill with symptoms of radiation poisoning.

The confirmation that traces of polonium 210, a radioactive isotope, were found in Hamburg as early as Oct. 28 is critical because the British police have so far found no evidence of polonium contamination in London earlier than Nov. 1, the date of the fateful meeting in the Millennium Mayfair Hotel.

It raises the possibility that the polonium was carried from Moscow to London by way of Germany. An officer from Scotland Yard is to travel to Hamburg on Monday to coordinate the investigations.

This is all very exciting stuff from a spy mystery standpoint, but of course there are real deaths involved, so it’s an incredibly serious matter.  Still, somebody is going to make one hell of a book (and maybe movie) out of this someday…