German police have found traces of radiation in two buildings linked to a Russian businessman who met the murdered ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill, a spokeswoman said today.
Radiation traces were found overnight in an apartment in the northern German city of Hamburg belonging to the ex-wife of Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun, who met Litvinenko in a London bar and who is also now in hospital.
Hamburg police said today they had found further traces of radiation at a building in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein belonging to Mr Kovtun's ex-mother-in-law.
Kremlin critic Litvinenko was killed in London by a lethal dose of polonium 210, a radioactive substance. British and Russian authorities have opened murder investigations.
He died on November 23rd and was buried in London on Thursday.
Mr Kovtun is in hospital in Moscow, though there have been contradictory reports about his health. Some said he was in critical condition but a lawyer who was in touch with his representatives told Reuters those reports were wrong.
Police investigating the apartment in the Hamburg building did not find a radiation source during their search but found two areas which were contaminated with radiation, the police spokeswoman said.
Mr Kovtun had a flat in the same block. The traces of radiation could be sign that a source of radiation had been there previously. The entire building in the Ottensen district of the northern port city, is now being searched by radiation experts.
Hamburg police said neither Mr Kovtun nor his ex-wife nor her mother were suspects in the investigation but said the ex-wife had been questioned. Anyone who came into contact with her or the Hamburg apartment in recent weeks would be checked. Interfax news agency reported yesterday that Mr Kovtun's business partner Andrei Lugovoy had damage to vital organs consistent with exposure to dangerous levels of radiation.