Germans find radiation linked to Litvinenko contact

HAMBURG, Dec 9 (Reuters) 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 detection experts were also checking the plane which businessman Dmitry Kovtun flew to London with on the day he met Litvinenko in a bar, said a spokesman for the plane's operator, budget airline Germanwings.

The investigation surrounding Kremlin critic Litvinenko's death spread to Germany when radiation traces were found overnight in an apartment belonging to Kovtun's ex-wife in the northern city of Hamburg. Kovtun is now in hospital.

Further traces of radiation were found at a building in Pinneberg in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein on Saturday which belongs to Kovtun's former 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 23 and was buried in London on Thursday.

Kovtun travelled to London from Germany on November 1 to meet the ex-spy, he told Web site stern.de in an interview conducted before he was taken to hospital. It is not clear where he was between Litvinenko being taken ill and his own admission to hospital.

Some reports say Kovtun, who is in hospital in Moscow, is in a critical condition but a lawyer who was in touch with his representatives told Reuters those reports were wrong.

Hamburg police said neither 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.

PLANE SEARCHED A spokesman for airline Germanwings said one of the company's A 319 aircraft has been grounded at Cologne-Bonn airport and was being investigated by experts from the Federal Office for Radiation Protection. No results were available.

The spokesman confirmed that Kovtun had flown on that jet to London on November 1, the day he met Litvinenko in a London bar with his business partner Andrei Lugovoy to discuss a business deal.

He has denied any part in Litvinenko's poisoning and offered to help police. He told stern.de Web site he would be happy to give police details of the deal if they questioned him.

''If it had worked out, then it would have been worthwhile for Litvinenko,'' he was quoted as saying.

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.

Kovtun had a flat in the same block in the Ottensen district of the northern port city.

The traces of radiation could be sign that a source of radiation had been there previously.

Interfax news agency reported yesterday that Kovtun's business partner Lugovoy had damage to vital organs consistent with exposure to dangerous levels of radiation.

British detectives working in Moscow as part of their investigation into the murder of Litvinenko, a British citizen, have already questioned Kovtun with Russian investigators.

REUTERS PDM RAI2057