A Very Expensive Poison

by Luke Harding

  The sergeant asked when he might talk to Lugovoi. The reply: you can talk to him for one hour, when doctors permit.

  That evening in London, the press office of New Scotland Yard announced that Litvinenko’s death was being now treated as a murder inquiry. The news went down badly in Moscow. Detectives had been due to interview Lugovoi on 7 December. The interview was cancelled, rescheduled and cancelled again. Russia announced its own criminal inquiry into Kovtun’s ‘poisoning’ – a counter-move. There were further delays, and a meeting in which Russian prosecutors claimed that Litvinenko had aided Berezovsky’s ‘bogus’ claim for UK asylum.

  In Britain – actually on sabbatical in Oxford, learning Russian ahead of my Guardian posting to Moscow – I received an email from British Airways.

  It said:

  Dear Mr Harding

  As a valued customer I am writing to give you the latest information regarding the forensic examination of three of our Boeing 767 aircraft.

  You may be aware that these three aircraft were identified by the UK government as part of the police investigation into the death of Alexander Litvinenko.

  The email went on to say that initial tests revealed ‘very low traces of a radioactive substance’ on board two of the planes. It said the UK’s Health Protection Agency had concluded there was no risk to passengers from one of them, and that ‘monitoring is continuing on the second aircraft’. BA listed the affected planes on its website. It gave the number of an NHS Direct helpline.

  I checked BA’s website: my wife Phoebe and I had flown on a polonium plane. I called NHS Direct. The helpline wasn’t terribly enlightening – it gave general information and suggested that if concerned I should go and see my doctor. I hung up. After all, I was feeling fine.

  Behind the scenes, the British authorities were trying to identify all of the aircraft used by Lugovoi and Kovtun in their journeys to and from the UK. In addition to their BA flights, they had travelled on 16 October from Moscow to London with Russian carrier Transaero. They sat in seats 16F and 16E on the outward leg, and in 26F and 26E on the return trip two days later. The police identified the Boeing 737 planes involved, EI-DDK and EI-DNM.

  The UK Foreign Office asked the Russian authorities for help. It suggested that, given the potential risk to public health, they test both aircraft for radioactive contamination. The reply was prompt. Russia’s chief public health minister Gennady Onishchenko told the British embassy in Moscow that extensive checks had been carried out. He was happy to announce that no radiation had been found on either plane.

  Despite these reassurances, teams from the Atomic Weapons Establishment were made ready. Scotland Yard wanted to examine the aircraft for evidence. In early December, experts tested the second Transaero plane, EI-DNM, after it landed at Heathrow. To their surprise they found low-level traces of polonium – eight becquerels per centimetre squared. Onishchenko’s remarks – widely reported in the Russian press – were a lie.

  The results were passed to COBRA, the UK government’s emergency response committee. A request was sent to the Russian foreign ministry asking for permission to test the first Moscow–London plane. This was likely to show higher levels of contamination, since the polonium had originated in Russia. The plane never arrived. It appears the Kremlin instructed Transaero to cancel the flight. EI-DDK never came back to UK airspace.

  As for BA 873 – the plane used by Lugovoi and his family to fly to London on 31 October – polonium was found here too. The highest readings came from Lugovoi’s seat, 23D. Contamination was discovered on the BA aircraft in which they flew back to Moscow on 3 December, especially in seat 16D. The very expensive poison had left a very detectable signature.

  *

  Back in Moscow, British detectives were finally granted an audience with the man himself, again in Hospital No. 6. DI Slater travelled with Otvodov in a van with blacked-out windows, its blue lights flashing. They arrived, entered via a rear entrance, and went up the stairs to a room with a table.

  Lugovoi was dressed in a hospital gown, as befits a patient receiving medical treatment. Underneath, Slater noticed with surprise, Lugovoi was wearing an expensive designer T-shirt, black with a white motif. The gown, it appeared, was for dramatic purposes.

  Doctors had claimed Lugovoi was gravely ill. To Slater, he looked positively fit and healthy – and appeared to have been driven to the clinic from outside. Slater had instructions to check Lugovoi’s eyebrows and arms; if he’d been suffering from radiation sickness his hair would have fallen out. He had a full head of hair.

  Lugovoi’s interview lasted longer than Kovtun’s and he gave better answers. He talked about his family – he was estranged from one of his daughters, Anastasia, who lived in the city of Kursk. He spoke of his business activities – his factory in Ryazan province which made kvas, beer and wine. And he gave an account of his three trips to London in October and November, including his dealings with Litvinenko.

  According to Lugovoi, he and Kovtun had arrived back at the Millennium Hotel at 4 p.m. We know this is untrue: CCTV footage shows them arriving half an hour earlier, with Lugovoi and Kovtun both making separate visits to the gents’ toilets, later found to be heavily contaminated with polonium. ‘We didn’t go upstairs but went straight to the bar to wait,’ he said. ‘About ten minutes later, Litvinenko arrived in the lobby and I invited him to sit.’

  Litvinenko spoke mostly to Kovtun about Hamburg, Lugovoi said. The meeting broke up, he added, when his daughter Tatiana appeared at the entrance to the Pine Bar and his son Igor came in: ‘I introduced him to Litvinenko. Maybe they shook hands.’ Lugovoi said he’d known Kovtun for thirty years, and that Kovtun lived in Moscow.

  After one and a half hours, a doctor told Slater the interview was over. The detective hadn’t finished. Nevertheless, Lugovoi got up and left, telling Slater breezily in English:

  ‘Goodbye, see you later.’

  The encounter had yielded some useful information. It confirmed Lugovoi’s movements in the UK, and gave a sharper picture of his contacts and associates. But many questions were unanswered. Slater drew up a list. Among them: ‘Clarify Millennium meeting. Who sat where at the table? Can you draw a sketch plan? How was the meeting arranged? What telephones were used?’

  The next day, Slater returned to the prosecutor’s office to agree a transcript of the Lugovoi interview. He’d taken notes and typed them up. Otvodov produced the official Russian version of the meeting. Some of what Lugovoi said was missing. It had been edited from the protocol.

  It appeared that the Kremlin wanted to remove all references to the Russian mafia in Spain and its links with Russian politicians. Lugovoi’s account of his conversations with Litvinenko about Spain had disappeared. Litvinenko had described how he had helped arrest Zakhar Kalashov, known as Shakro, a leading Russian mafia boss. He had also told Lugovoi about ‘Jorge’, his contact in Spanish intelligence.

  The omission was significant. Lugovoi had mentioned Spain before Litvinenko’s work for the Spanish security services had become public knowledge. It meant that the Kremlin knew Litvinenko was investigating an organised crime syndicate linked to Putin and to corruption at the top of Russian power. It also knew that Litvinenko was a key witness in a future possible trial.

  The now-vanished passage quoted Lugovoi as saying: ‘Litvinenko knew I wanted to go to Spain and we discussed it. He said he had a friend in Spain. Litvinenko told me that Russian criminal elements were buying property in Spain. On the 26th and 27th [October], Jorge called Litvinenko and Jorge speaks Russian. Litvinenko told me that Shakro, a criminal, was arrested in Russia, the same kind of operation is going to be done in Spain. It’s connected with money-laundering.’ Litvinenko had said the sums involved were large – $250 million.

  Slater raised the missing section with Russian officials. They brushed away his concerns. Slater reluctantly signed and added a dissenting note saying the protocol was incomplete.

  During the second week in Moscow, the detecti
ves got access to other witnesses. They included Lugovoi’s wife, Svetlana; Sokolenko, the third man at the Millennium Hotel; Lugovoi’s personal assistant Angelina Idrisova; his lawyer and doctor.

  Svetlana Lugovaya’s interview took place at the prosecutor’s office. Her answers were curt.

  DC HALL: Did your husband discuss with you some theories as to [the death of] Litvinenko?

  LUGOVAYA: No.

  DC HALL: Nothing at all? No theories, nothing? I find it very strange you have not spoken to your husband about this case.

  LUGOVAYA: I do not find anything strange because of all of the versions of it and the mix-up.

  DC HALL: And which versions are these?

  LUGOVAYA: We have to know what to discuss precisely? We do not know exactly what has happened.

  DC HALL: What?

  LUGOVAYA: None. Simply papers, television. We read the papers but we do not discuss anything.

  Under the surface, the Lugovois’ marriage looked to be in trouble. What, if anything, did Svetlana suspect? She and her children had all been exposed to polonium and were treated at a private hospital; little Igor had shaken Litvinenko’s hand. Her husband had put their entire family in peril. What kind of monster would do that? Lugovoya would later divorce her husband. In April 2013, aged forty-six, Lugovoi married again, to a 23-year-old named Ksenia; two years later they had a son.

  Sokolenko, meanwhile, said he’d flown to London to attend the CSKA Moscow–Arsenal match. His trip had been touristic, he said. It included beers with other fans who’d flown in from Austria, a bus trip, and a visit to Madame Tussauds. He went shopping with Lugovoi and Kovtun. They visited a toyshop, where Lugovoi bought cartridges for a computer game as a present for Igor. Sokolenko purchased teddy bears. He said he knew nothing about polonium.

  By 19 December, the detectives had wrapped up. All that remained was for them to collect the interview tapes from their Russian counterparts. Tarpey went to the prosecutor general’s office. He was surprised to find, for once, no media outside. An official escorted him to a third-floor room. Inside he saw an array of reporters from Russian state TV.

  Tarpey said he was ‘totally unprepared’ for cameras and would have objected, given a chance. Russian officials insisted he make a small speech, thanking the Russian prosecutor for his help and assistance. Tarpey muttered a few polite words. He was taken to a table, where officials presented him with lever-arch file binders containing the interview tapes. The cameras whirred and clicked; Tarpey signed a receipt.

  It was a nice little piece of television and proof, surely, that Moscow was as keen as London to uncover the truth? For much of the mission, the Kremlin had led Scotland Yard investigators by the nose. It had been a difficult, high-profile trip in which officers had found themselves uncomfortably under the media’s glare. Their task was to collect evidence and often this hadn’t been possible.

  Still, Tarpey thought, at least he had the audio-recordings.

  When the detectives got back to Scotland Yard they found one final unpleasant surprise. Seven of the tapes were fine. But when they played the eighth, the recording of the interview with Lugovoi, no sound came out. The tape was blank.

  *

  From his fifth-floor office, Thomas Menzel had an impressive view of Hamburg. The city’s police headquarters were located in the green suburb of Alsterdorf. The detectives who worked there nicknamed the HQ ‘Polizei-Stern’ or Police Star because of its unusual ten-sided design. Through his large corner window, Menzel could see a light athletics track stadium, cranes, a line of trees and a police training building immediately below him.

  Menzel was aware of Litvinenko’s case from the German press. It was, he thought, an extraordinary business – reminiscent of the Cold War, and involving a substance he had never come across before in many previous murder inquiries. Menzel was the head of the criminal investigation department in Hamburg’s Kriminalamt and the director of its organised crime unit. His officers were used to the darker and more extreme aspects of human behaviour: murders, drug violence, rapes.

  This was something else.

  The German news magazine Der Spiegel had devoted six pages and its cover to Litvinenko’s strange death. The date was 4 December 2006. Menzel picked up a copy and began reading. Halfway through he stopped. He reached for the phone. Spiegel reported that Kovtun had spent four days in Hamburg before meeting Litvinenko in London. Scotland Yard hadn’t been in touch but it was evident London’s problem was now Hamburg’s headache too. It was, seemingly, the biggest case since the discovery that some of the 9/11 terrorists led by Mohamed Atta had been living quietly in the city.

  Menzel quickly established a few basic facts. Kovtun was registered in Hamburg, had an ex-wife in the city, and appeared to have lived in Germany for twelve years. The German authorities had no experience of polonium; nobody did. ‘We didn’t know what this substance was,’ he told me.

  Menzel contacted two other federal agencies – the office of criminal investigation, known as the BKA, and the office of radiation protection. Soon, he had 600 officers on active duty. Journalists spotted lights burning in the Polizei-Stern over the weekend. Something was up.

  Menzel’s team came up with a name for the unusual operation. They called it ‘Der Dritte Mann’ or ‘The Third Man’, after the black-and-white 1949 thriller set in divided post-war Vienna. ‘Der Dritte Mann is a film classic. We thought the title appropriate. We had three men who had gone to London and the atmosphere around it had something of the Cold War about it,’ Menzel said. He added: ‘It was very unusual. It had a political dimension like no other case I’ve been involved in.’

  Within a short period, Hamburg police were able to reconstruct Kovtun’s movements in the city – from his ex-wife’s flat in Hamburg-Altona to the town hall where he filled in and signed his new foreigner registration documents. They found traces of polonium under his photo; indeed everywhere they looked. Officers lugged away evidence in boxes from Wall’s apartment in Erzbergerstrasse and from D3’s home. Menzel opened a criminal case. Kovtun was accused of unlawfully smuggling nuclear material into the Federal Republic of Germany.

  Washington was paying attention. Duane Butcher, the US consul general in Hamburg, met Menzel on 14 December. In a confidential dispatch to the US State Department, later leaked, Butcher gave an account of Menzel’s findings. He noted: ‘Investigators hope to find out more about Kovtun as an individual – what he did for a living, what his personal background was – and whether he had worked at the Russian consulate in Hamburg in the past.’ Kovtun had met an Italian national in Hamburg – D3. Perhaps there was an Italian connection, Menzel told Butcher.

  German and British investigators were agreed: the forensic evidence against Kovtun and Lugovoi was plentiful and damning. Butcher quoted Gerhard Schindler, deputy director general for counter-terrorism at the German interior ministry:

  ‘Kovtun left polonium traces on everything he touched – vehicles, objects, clothes, and furniture. German investigators concluded Kovtun did not have polonium traces on his skin or clothes; Schindler said that polonium was coming out of his body.’

  *

  As the investigation made progress, D3 found himself in a terrifying nightmare. After Kovtun flew to London he devoted no further thought to his friend’s wild story of traitors and poisons. Two days later, he called Kovtun to see how he was getting on. Kovtun didn’t pick up. A little later, and apparently back in Moscow, Kovtun called back, and said everything was fine.

  Two weeks after that, D3 picked up a copy of either the Hamburger Morgenpost or Bild Zeitung – he can’t remember which. Splashed across it was the story of Litvinenko’s poisoning and death. Kovtun’s name was mentioned; he appeared to be the prime suspect. D3 read the story and, as he put it, felt the ground give way beneath his feet.

  What he’d dismissed as another of Dmitry’s quixotic idiocies had materialised into a cold-blooded international killing. D3 was afraid and confused. He thought about going to the po
lice. But what if this situation somehow rebounded upon him? He decided to do nothing. Perhaps detectives might solve the case on their own.

  Then, Kovtun called from Moscow as D3 was out on his bike. The line was poor; they agreed Kovtun would ring again in the evening, which he did. Kovtun asked if D3 had read the newspapers. D3 asked him: ‘Was that you?’ Kovtun said the story was rubbish, adding that the English police were going to question him. ‘If that wasn’t you, you don’t need to worry,’ D3 replied.

  Try as he might, D3 could not banish the poison conversation with Kovtun from his mind. In December, German police interviewed him for the first time. They searched his flat and took away his contaminated mattress. He gave them an account of his meeting with Kovtun. But he said nothing about Kovtun’s confession as they had walked together towards Steindamm.

  As D3’s torment grew, Kovtun’s seemingly lessened. On 11 December, Kovtun phoned from Moscow. ‘He was quite jolly. He was in a good mood,’ D3 said. Kovtun said he was fine, apologised for causing inconvenience, insisted he was innocent, ‘marked’ by someone else and the victim of a media smear. D3: ‘I asked him what kind of arsehole he is to do this with Marina and the children? I was very angry but tried to remain calm.’ Upbeat, Kovtun was again talking of the Moscow flat he soon expected to receive.

  They didn’t speak again.

  D3 wasn’t afraid of Kovtun as such. But he understood that he was now a witness, an important one. And therefore – the logic had a dark certainty to it – a vulnerable one as well. It was a frightening position. Even if Dmitry were not capable of murder, perhaps others around him were? Twelve days passed. Unable to bear it any more, D3 told a lawyer what had happened. The lawyer contacted the police. ‘This awful feeling became so great that I had to get it off my chest. I had to say it, I could not go on,’ D3 said.

  He told detectives the affair had left him uncertain and edgy. And added: ‘I curse him [Kovtun] every day, because of the conversation, because of the whole story, and because of other persons whom he has presumably also contaminated. And perhaps because of the mattress.’ His fear that something might happen to him or his family came and went, he said, adding: ‘I am frightened quite suddenly for no reason.’