Alexander Litvinenko 'was poisoned twice with polonium-210' inquiry hears - Telegraph Law and Order Alexander Litvinenko 'was poisoned twice with polonium-210' inquiry hears Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko is thought to have been poisoned with polonium-210 on October 16 and November 1, 2006 By Gordon Rayner, and Tom Whitehead 6:44PM GMT 27 Jan 2015 Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned “not once, but twice” with radioactive polonium-210 by a Russian “death squad” sent by Vladimir Putin, an inquiry into his killing has heard. The former KGB spy had already survived one attempt on his life by the time he ingested a fatal dose of the rare isotope, but mistakenly thought he was suffering from food poisoning when the first murder attempt made him sick. Samples of his hair proved that polonium had entered his body on two separate occasions weeks apart, the inquiry into his death in 2006 was told.

For the first time, it also emerged that one of the two prime suspects in the killing had approached a contact in Germany and asked if he knew a chef in London who could slip a “very expensive poison” into Litvinenko’s food or drink. On the first day of the inquiry, which replaces an inquest into the 43-year-old’s death and has the power to hear secret evidence from intelligence sources, the chairman Sir Robert Owen was given the most detailed account to date of the events surrounding the “state sponsored” assassination. Related Articles Alexander Litvinenko Inquiry: as it happened 27 Jan 2015 He was told that Andrey Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard, and former soldier Dmitry Kovtun slipped into the country twice with supplies of polonium-210 and administered the fatal dose in a pot of green tea during a meeting with Litvinenko at London’s Millennium Hotel on November 1, 2006.

But Robin Tam QC, council to the Inquiry at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, disclosed that Litvinenko had been the subject of an earlier assassination attempt, during a meeting with Lugovoy and Kovtun at a business premises on October 16 that year. Lugovoy and Kovtun had flown into the country on that date, and checked into the Best Western Hotel in Shaftesbury Avenue. According to Mr Tam, they had smuggled polonium-210 in their luggage, and left traces of it in their adjacent rooms, 107 and 108. The radioactive material is easily concealed because its alpha radiation is simple to contain and it does not emit gamma radiation of the sort that might be picked up by airport scanners. Litvinenko had agreed to meet the two men in the boardroom of Erinys, a private security company, where they allegedly slipped him a dose of the poison, which is deadly if ingested in sufficient quantities. Mr Tam said: “One of the most significant things the evidence suggests is that Mr Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium not once but twice.

“It suggests two things - attempts to poison Mr Litvinenko were made at both meetings and that those attempts met with some success on both occasions. “Hair samples that are available indicate that Mr Litvinenko may well have been poisoned twice and that the first occasion being much less severe than the second.” On the evening of October 16, Litvinenko, 43, vomited when he got home and put it down to food poisoning. The two men left the country on October 18, but on October 30 Kovtun, who had previously lived in Hamburg where he worked in a restaurant, returned to the German city and met a former colleague, referred to only as D3. Mr Tam said: “Mr Kovtun raised the subject of Mr Litvinenko, who was unknown to D3.

Mr Kovtun said that Mr Litvinenko was a traitor with blood on his hands who did deals with Chechnya.” Kovtun asked D3 whether he knew any cooks working in London, because: “He had a very expensive poison and that he needed the cook to put the poison in Mr Litvinenko's food or drink.” D3 thought at the time that Kovtun was “talking rubbish” and only later reported the conversation to the authorities. He did know a chef in London, and gave Kovtun his number, which Kovtun later called to ask for a meeting. Two days later, on November 1, Kovtun flew from Hamburg to London, where he met Lugovoy, who had already arrived and was staying with his family at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square. On November 1 Kovtun and Lugovoy met Litvinenko in the hotel’s Pine Bar. Litvinenko told police there was a silver-coloured teapot and some cups on the table when he arrived at the bar.

He said: “Andrey asked, 'Would you like anything?' I said 'I don't want anything', and he said, 'Okay, well we're going to leave now anyway, so there is still some tea left here, if you want to you can have some'. “And then the waiter went away, or I think Andrei asked for a clean cup and he brought it. He left and when there was a cup, I poured some tea out of the teapot, although there was only a little left on the bottom and it made just half a cup. “It was green tea with no sugar and it was already cold by the way. I didn't like it for some reason…maybe in total I swallowed three or four times. I haven't even finished that cup.” He added: “I don't like when people pay for me but in such an expensive hotel, forgive me, I don't have enough money to pay that. “Later on, when I left the hotel, I was thinking there is something strange. I had been feeling all the time, I knew that they wanted to kill me, actually.

But could I have told this?” When Litvinenko fell ill, doctors spent weeks trying to diagnose the cause of his illness, but initially discounted radiation poisoning because there were no traces of gamma radiation. It was only after an “inspired hunch” by an expert that Litvinenko’s urine was tested at the Atomic Weapons Establishment for the much rarer alpha radiation of the kind emitted by polonium. Tests at the venues visited by Lugovoy and Kovtun showed that in parts of the boardroom where they met Litvinenko on October 16 there was “full scale deflection” of the instruments – in other words the readings were off the scale. Similar levels of alpha radiation were found in the spout of a teapot at the Millennium Hotel, with lower levels of contamination found in the Pine Bar and Kovtun’s room, 382.

Polonium Used to Poison Russian Spy May Have Harmed Londoners: Inquiry Polonium Used to Poison Russian Spy May Have Harmed Londoners: Inquiry World | Reuters | Updated: July 30, 2015 17:11 IST EMAIL COMMENTS File Photo: The Moscow Kremlin (Thinkstock Photo) London: An unknown number of Londoners might have been put at risk by the 2006 poisoning of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with a radioactive isotope, which amounted to "a nuclear attack on the streets" of the British capital, an inquiry heard on Thursday. Kremlin critic Litvinenko died weeks after drinking green tea laced with polonium-210 at London's plush Millennium hotel. From his deathbed he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his killing but the Kremlin has always denied any role. "We will never know how dangerous the exposure of polonium to the public at large will be and what long term effects will be visited upon Londoners", Richard Horwell, the lawyer acting for London police, said in closing remarks to a British public inquiry into the death.

"Anyone who arranges for polonium-210 to be brought into a city centre does so without any regard for human life. Mr Emmerson (the lawyer representing Litvinenko's widow Marina) has said ... this was a nuclear attack on the streets of London. That comment is justified." The controversy generated by Litvinenko's killing plunged Anglo-Russian relations to a post-Cold War low. Horwell said police wanted two Russians, Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy, who was also a former Russian agent but has since been elected a lawmaker, to be tried in Britain for murder. Both men deny any involvement and Russia has refused to extradite them. The inquiry has been told that traces of polonium were found across London where the two men had been including offices, hotels, planes and even Arsenal football club's stadium. "It is the scientific evidence that condemns Lugovoy and Kovtun," Horwell said. "No matter how many state honours Putin may pin to Lugovoy's chest ...

however many conferences Kovtun may hold or how many times Kovtun promises to blow apart this inquiry, Lugovoy and Kovtun have no credible answer to the scientific evidence and the trail of polonium they left behind." The lawyer said polonium was the "almost perfect murder weapon", almost undetectable, certain to kill and as it took time to work, it gave the killers plenty of time to escape before arousing suspicion. It was only by sheer chance that the authorities had even detected the isotope just before Litvinenko died or otherwise the cause of death would have been a mystery, he said. "They wanted to evade attribution for his death because they wanted to avoid political fallout in the UK," Horwell said. The inquiry's report is due by the end of the year. © Thomson Reuters 2015 What was used to poison Alexander Litvinenko? - Business Insider Business Insider You have successfully emailed the post. × Jan. 21, 2016, 7:51 AM 1,836 print Alexander Litvinenko.

Getty Polonium-210 has been at the centre of one of the most intriguing murder investigations on British soil since it was discovered to have been the poison of choice in the death of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. The discovery of the involvement of the rare radioactive isotope, made only at closed nuclear facilities controlled by Russia, pointed the finger of blame at the Russian state. On 21 January, an independent inquiry report into the poisoning of the former KGB agent and Russian dissident will be published in Britain, nearly a decade after his death. What is polonium? It is a naturally occurring radioactive material that emits extremely hazardous alpha particles. Polonium was first discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1897. Polonium-210 is one of 25 radioactive isotopes of polonium. It decays to lead by alpha particle emission, with a half-life of 138 days. There are very small amounts of polonium-210 in the soil, the atmosphere and tiny amounts of the substance in the human body. However, when ingested at high doses, polonium-210 is fatal and very difficult to identify.

Just one microgram of polonium-210, which is no bigger than a speck of dust, would be enough to deliver a fatal dose of radiation. What is polonium-210 used for? Substantial amounts of Po-210 generate heat as the atoms decay. The isotope has been used in Russian lunar landers to warm the instruments on freezing nights. Polonium-210 is used in manufacturing in devices that eliminate static. These devices are designed to meet tough safety standards and pose no threat to public health or safety. Small polonium-210 sources can also be used to check or calibrate instruments. Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB spy and author of the book "Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within" photographed at his home in London in 2004. AP Photo/Alistair Fuller It is difficult to get hold of polonium-210 unless the individual has access to a nuclear facility. Only around 100g of the substance is manufactured in nuclear reactors around the world annually.

During the inquiry into Litvinenko's death, Norman Dombey, emeritus professor of theoretical physics at the University of Sussex, said the polonium used was produced at a closed nuclear facility in the Russian city of Sarov. He said its Soviet-era Avangard plant was the only place in the world with a polonium "production line". Can it be transported? Alpha particles can be stopped by paper, or glass vials, so polonium-210 could potentially be smuggled into the country without the smuggler succumbing to radiation poisoning. It has no colour or taste, so it can be added to food and drink without being detected. Polonium-210 is difficult to detect in hospital tests and airport scanners because it does not emit a lot of gamma radiation, which is picked up by Geiger counters. In what way is polonium-210 deadly? As polonium has a biological half-life of around one month, its alpha particles continue to destroy the body once it has been ingested. "Polonium is rapidly distributed around the body, leaving a trail of reactive radicals in its wake as it steals electrons from any molecule it encounters," the Royal Society of Chemistry reports.

"Low-level DNA damage from radiation can cause genetic changes that affect cell replication, whereas more severe damage may force the cell to self destruct by apoptosis." The death of Marie Curie's daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, was linked to a laboratory accident in which a sealed capsule of polonium exploded. She died of leukaemia in 1956, more than 10 years after the incident took place. Polonium-210: Why Is Po-210 So Poisonous? - Medical News Today Polonium-210: Why Is Po-210 So Poisonous? 4.5 43 4 Polonium-210 is familiar to most people as the deadly poison used to kill Alexander Litvinenko, an MI6 agent and former Soviet and Russian spy who succumbed to radiation sickness in London in the UK in November 2006.

While polonium-210 is highly dangerous, it may surprise some to know that this radioactive material is found naturally in the human body due to low levels in the normal environment.1,2 Tobacco smokers also accumulate polonium isotope 210 in their lungs, and the radioactive substance is also present in the food chain, especially in seafood. It is alleged that Litvinenko ingested a fatal dose of Po-210 by drinking tea at a business meeting with two other Russians, both of whom have been charged with his murder. 3,4,21 Several locations in London, including a restaurant and nightclub, were closed by authorities during the investigation amid fears of potential public exposure to Po-210.20 Litvinenko's autopsy was a complicated process involving multiple safety measures to avoid contamination with radioactive material.

Some 700 or so people were thought to have been exposed to polonium-210 connected to Litvinenko's death, but none experienced serious sickness.21 An inquiry into Litvinenko's death was established by the British government and is ongoing, with public court hearings having commenced at the end of January 2015.5,21 Most recently, a world-leading expert in theoretical physics told the inquiry that the polonium-210 in this case could only have come from a specific closed nuclear facility in Sarov, Russia.22 Use this page to discover what polonium-210 is and how the radioactive material - one of the most toxic substances known to humankind6 - poses its threat as a poison and weapon of terror. Contents of this article: British inquiry into Litvinenko's death Fast facts on polonium-210 Here are some key points about polonium-210. More detail and supporting information is in the body of this article. Polonium-210 is a rare radioactive metal discovered by Marie Curie in the late 19th century. It has a half-life of 138 days, decaying to lead.

During its radioactive decay, polonium-210 emits alpha particles. The alpha particles are a very high-energy form of radiation but do not travel far - they can be blocked by a few sheets of paper, and lose all their energy after travelling through a few centimeters of air. Polonium-210 is poisonous only once it has entered the body, where it is powerful and deadly, even at doses of less than a microgram. By mass, polonium-210 is one of the deadliest toxins. It is around 250,000 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide - the lethal dose of which is 250 milligrams. It would be very difficult to obtain polonium for poisoning, necessitating access to a nuclear reactor. But once acquired, polonium is relatively safe to transport and hide from detection. Unlike most radioactive substances, polonium-210 emits alpha radiation rather than gamma radiation, which is why it is not detected by Geiger counters. Polonium-210 becomes poisonous when it is breathed in, swallowed, or otherwise enters the body, such as through broken skin.

A high enough dose of polonium by mouth will lead to acute radiation syndrome - the severity of which, and time to illness and death, depends on the amount of radioactive material absorbed. The liver, bone marrow and other soft tissues are particularly sensitive to the effects of polonium. Acute radiation syndrome presents as vomiting, hair loss , and reductions in white blood cells. Specialist radiation detectors are needed to diagnose contamination with polonium-210. Treatment is limited to supportive care against the effects of the radiation, although chelation agents may be able to help eliminate polonium if a case of poisoning is identified early enough. The prognosis in a case of polonium-210 poisoning depends largely on the amount of radiation absorbed by the body. Former spy Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated by polonium poisoning in London in 2006. British police identified that the polonium-210 had been introduced via a teapot. What is polonium-210?7-9 Polonium is a radioactive chemical element (atomic number 84) that was discovered in 1898 by Marie Curie. Polonium is one of the most toxic substances known to humankind.

Being a Polish chemist, Curie named the element after her home country, and her discovery won her the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911, which was also a recognition of her discovery of another element, radium.10 In its natural state at room temperature, polonium is a solid metal with a silver color. Polonium-210 is one of 25 known radioactive isotopes of polonium and it has a half-life of 138 days (meaning half its radioactivity dies away in this time), decaying into a new, stable metal - lead. Polonium is very rare, as Marie Curie found when she discovered it in a source of uranium known as pitchblende. As little as about 100 micrograms (0.0001 grams) of polonium occurs in one ton of uranium ore.

Curie's pioneering work, however, produced enough polonium to fatally expose her daughter Irène in a lab accident in 1946 - she went on to suffer leukemia , dying in 1956 at the age of 58.11 Modern production of the substance is usually done by creating another radioactive element in a nuclear reactor, which itself then decays to polonium-210. Polonium-210 is abbreviated to Po-210, (210)Po, or 210Po. Beneficial uses of polonium include: Insulating instruments in Russian lunar landing craft - polonium decay generates significant heat relative to its light weight Application in commercial devices to remove static electricity, in which polonium is usually electroplated onto other metals Inspecting oil wells (using the same principles as when using polonium to trigger nuclear weapons) To measure the thickness of industrial coatings (through alpha radiation attenuation). How dangerous is polonium-210? Hydrogen cyanide is well known to be highly poisonous, but is far less toxic than polonium-210.

Matched milligram for milligram, polonium-210 is 250 billion times more toxic.8,11 This makes polonium-210 one of the most toxic substances known to man.6 Toxicologists estimate that one gram of polonium could be enough to kill 50 million people, on top of another 50 million who would become ill; in the case of Litvinenko, less than one millionth of that amount would have been enough to cause his death (less than a microgram).8 How could an assassin use polonium-210 for poisoning? Clearly, polonium-210 is extremely dangerous - but it is also extremely difficult to obtain.

Its commercial application onto devices that remove static has largely been replaced by non-radioactive technology and is done in such a way that it is infeasible to separate the polonium for use as a poison.9,12 Even buying pure polonium from legitimate sources would not be feasible since it is sold in such tiny quantities - 15,000 orders would have to be placed to enable enough for poisoning.9,12 If a person was to acquire some polonium, say from a nuclear industrial process, it is not particularly dangerous to carry around as its high-energy radiation can be blocked by a relatively thin barrier for a radioactive material. Polonium-210 is unable to penetrate the epidermis (the skin), and is blocked by just a few sheets of thin paper. Additionally, alpha particles usually lose all their energy after traveling through a few centimeters of air.11,13 The rapid application and damaging effects of polonium-210, added to its relatively safe transportation and minimal risk of detection make it an attractive potential poison.

The perpetrator(s) of Alexander Litvinenko's murder by polonium poisoning would have needed access to "a reactor capable of producing and irradiating materials, and a radiochemical laboratory," according to quotes in New Scientist from Professor Nick Priest, one of few UK experts to have worked with polonium-210.3 Speaking at the British inquiry into Litvinenko's death, Norman Dombey, emeritus professor of theoretical physics at the University of Sussex, said the polonium used was produced at a closed nuclear facility in the city of Sarov, 450 miles south-east of Moscow.22 This Soviet-era plant (known as Avangard) was the only place in the world with a polonium production line, and the last remaining source of commercial polonium. The US and UK stopped making polonium in the 1970s as did all other countries. Dombey also told the inquiry that the dose of polonium used to kill Litvinenko was exceptionally large (26.5 micrograms).22 He determined that polonium was likely used in this case because it is unlikely to be detected, given that it emits alpha radiation rather than the gamma radiation emitted by most radioactive materials.

This means that the poison is unlikely to be detected. Indeed, it was only hours before Litvinenko's death that polonium-210 was discovered as the poison that was killing him. In all likelihood, Dombey says, the polonium-210 came from Avangard, after having started out as irradiated bismuth in the Mayak nuclear reactor in the Urals. 22 To convert the metallic polonium-210 into liquid form, Dombey says that a "state institution" would have had to be involved, before the two Russians charged with Litvinenko's murder would have had to smuggle it to London.22 Polonium has a half-life of just 138 days, meaning that it loses half of its radioactivity in that time.

The 138 days for polonium-210 to lose half of its radioactivity means that the specimen used to kill Litvinenko would need to have been made relatively recently.9,11 Finally, when polonium-210 has reached its target, the poison must be introduced into the body to do its fatal damage internally.8,11 The high-energy alpha particles are harmless externally - they are blocked by a few sheets of paper, or the top layer of the skin, the epidermis. But deadly tissue damage can be done via:8,13 Inhalation Ingestion, or Entry through skin abrasions or wounds. Alexander Litvinenko is thought to have ingested the polonium via a cup of tea, which would have hidden the heat generated by the radioisotope. How does polonium poison humans? Polonium-210 does not itself have toxic chemical properties - the danger comes purely from the radiation it emits. But the alpha particles have a very short range across biological tissue.

This is a tiny fraction of a millimeter (40-50 microns or 0.04-0.05 mm), and the particles are stopped by the top layer of the skin.6 Before polonium-210 becomes dangerous to the human body, it must therefore be introduced internally. This can be through broken skin or through inhalation of ingestion by mouth, as in the Litvinenko case. Before the 2006 assassination, polonium-210 was considered to be a highly unlikely murder method.

However, since the event, there has been an increase in expert literature on this kind of poisoning.14 After oral ingestion, polonium-210 is initially concentrated in red blood cells, followed by the liver, kidneys, bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract, and gonads (testicles or ovaries).6 By mouth, polonium-210 is absorbed more readily than some other alpha-emitting radionuclides.8 Once absorbed into the blood, polonium is then distributed through the body mainly in soft tissues and roughly as follows:6,8 30% to the liver 10% to red bone marrow 10% to the kidney 5% to the spleen The remainder to the wider body, including the skin, particularly the hair follicles.

Polonium is a group 1 carcinogen - that is, it is known to cause cancer , rather than merely being suspected as a carcinogen.6 When inhaled, for example, polonium-210 causes lung cancer .13 Environmental levels of polonium are extremely low and harmless to human health, and very low levels of the substance are found naturally in the body (tobacco plants concentrate the radioisotope though - so smokers have higher levels).1 In sufficient amounts, polonium can be lethal within days or weeks. Polonium poisoning typically presents as unexplained vomiting, followed by bone marrow failure and hair loss. Different organs and tissues greatly vary in their sensitivity to the alpha radiation damage, with the blood-making (hematopoietic) tissue in the bone marrow, and the lining of the gut especially vulnerable.8 The bone marrow failure seen in polonium poisoning is accompanied by damage to other organs where polonium-210 concentrations are high, meaning that transfusions to rescue the bone marrow may not be enough to save someone.15 Why is alpha radiation so toxic?

As polonium is distributed around the body, it leaves a trail of reactive radicals because it steals electrons from any molecule in its path.9 Damage to DNA from the alpha particle radiation can cause apoptosis ''" cell suicide - and even low-level DNA damage can cause genetic changes that affect cellular replication.9 How much polonium is needed to cause death? Scientists have a number of ways to quantify amounts of radiation exposure. Polonium is extremely dangerous when inhaled, ingested, or introduced through broken skin. It is relatively safe to transport though, and its radiation will not penetrate the top layer of the skin.

The radiation given off (emitted) by a quantity of polonium is measured in Becquerels (Bq), a unit that describes the rate at which a radioactive material decays in terms of the number of disintegrations of its nucleus per second; a gigabecquerel (GBq) is 100,000,000 disintegrations per second.16 The amount of radiation absorbed by the tissues, meanwhile, is measured in gray units (Gy); the absorption of one joule of radiation energy per one kilogram of matter.16 Scientists estimate that the equivalent of between 0.1-0.3 GBq or more of polonium absorbed into the blood of an adult male would likely prove fatal within one month.15 Assuming 10% of ingested polonium would be absorbed into the blood, 1-3 GBq or more would need to be swallowed for the poison to be deadly15; just a few micrograms of polonium would be enough to kill someone.3 On the next page, we look at the diagnosis, symptoms and treatment of polonium poisoning.

Advertisement Radioactive poison used on Litvinenko may have harmed Londoners, says lawyer Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB spy and author of the book 'Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within,' is photographed at his home in London on Friday, May 10, 2002. (AP / Alistair Fuller, File) Jill Lawless, The Associated Press Published Thursday, July 30, 2015 6:47AM EDT Last Updated Thursday, July 30, 2015 10:27AM EDT LONDON -- The killers of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko may have harmed the health of thousands of Londoners as they trailed radioactive polonium-210 around the city, a lawyer for British police said Thursday. Richard Horwell told an inquiry into Litvinenko's death that the killing -- which police blame on two Russians directed by elements in the Kremlin -- may have exposed "hundreds if not thousands of Londoners" to radioactive contamination. "We will never know how dangerous the exposure of polonium to the public at large will be and what long-term effects will be visited on Londoners," Horwell said.

Litvinenko, a KGB officer-turned-Kremlin critic who fled to Britain in 2000, died in 2006, three weeks after drinking tea laced with polonium-210 at a London hotel. On his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his assassination -- a claim Moscow denies. British authorities say there is evidence of Russian state involvement, and police have accused two Russians who met Litvinenko in London, Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi, of carrying out the killing. Both deny involvement. Horwell said the "the science is such that the finger points unwaveringly" at Kovtun and Lugovoi. "The Metropolitan Police Service want Lugovoi and Kovtun to be tried in this country for murder," Horwell said. But that seems a remote prospect. Moscow refuses to extradite the suspects. Lugovoi is now a lawmaker in Russia, and in March he was given a medal by Putin for services to the nation. Horwell said that "no matter how many state honours Putin may pin to Lugovoi's chest for services to the motherland ...

Lugovoi and Kovtun have no credible answer to the scientific evidence and to the trail of polonium they left behind." Traces of the radioactive isotope, which is deadly if ingested in tiny quantities, were found in sites across London that the pair visited, including hotel rooms, restaurants, nightclubs and the stadium of soccer team Arsenal. Lawyers are making closing statements at the months-long inquiry, which is due to end Friday. Judge Robert Owen, who has heard from dozens of witnesses and seen secret evidence from the British intelligence services, plans to release his conclusions by the end of the year. Horwell said it was clear that "the Russian state in one form or another is likely to have been the sponsor of this plot." Litvinenko had criticized his former employer, the FSB, successor to the KGB, and accused Putin of being involved in criminal activities. Litvinenko also co-authored a book blaming the Russian government for involvement in a series of apartment building explosions in 1999 that were blamed on Chechen rebels. "The Russian state had reasons aplenty for wishing Litvinenko not only harm, but death," Horwell said. The Kremlin has denied all Litvinenko's accusations against the government and Putin.

Related Stories Alexander Litvinenko and the most radioactive towel in history | World news | The Guardian Alexander Litvinenko Alexander Litvinenko and the most radioactive towel in history The Russian dissident was murdered in London with polonium, but only on the third attempt. In an extract from his book A Very Expensive Poison, Luke Harding traces the toxic trail the clueless assassins spread around the capital The assassins were persistent ... ‘They kept saying: Don’t you want any tea, won’t you have any?’ Photograph: Alamy Sunday 6 March 2016 13.00 EST Last modified on Tuesday 15 March 2016 10.34 EDT Share on Messenger Close It was a warm autumn day when the two Russian visitors arrived in Grosvenor Street, central London. Their names were Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun; the date was 16 October 2006. They had arrived that morning from Moscow carrying something that British customs failed to detect. Not drugs or large sums of cash, but something so otherworldly, it had never been seen before in the UK. The substance was polonium, a highly radioactive isotope.

It is probably the most toxic poison known to man when swallowed or inhaled – more than 100bn times more deadly than hydrogen cyanide. It had come from a Russian nuclear reactor. The job of Lugovoi and Kovtun was to deploy it. They had come to poison Alexander Litvinenko , a Russian dissident, MI6 employee and Kremlin critic. The visiting killers had no personal grudge against their target. They had been sent by Russia’s FSB spy agency, in an operation likely to have been approved by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Scotland Yard has never established how the assassins transported the polonium. The amounts were very small and easy to disguise. There are several possibilities: a container with the poison administered by a pipette-style dropper. Or an aerosol-like spray. Even a modified fountain pen would do the trick. Within its container, the polonium was safe. Out of it, it was highly dangerous. Ingest it, and you were dead. Lugovoi and Kovtun, it would become apparent, had no idea what they were carrying. Their behaviour in Britain was idiotic, verging on suicidal.

Nobody in Moscow appears to have told them Po-210 had intensely radioactive properties. Or that it left a trace – placing them in specific locations and indicating, via telltale alpha-radiation markings, who sat where. It was possible to identify anything and everything these clueless assassins touched. That morning – at 11.49 – Lugovoi called Litvinenko from Gatwick airport to confirm their meeting that afternoon at the intelligence firm Erinys in Grosvenor Street. Litvinenko thought this was a routine meeting. Lugovoi had offered himself as Litvinenko’s business partner, giving advice to western firms seeking to invest in Russia . The killers travelled by train to central London. They checked into the Best Western hotel on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the heart of Soho. The first rule of spycraft is not to draw attention to yourself. But from the moment they stepped on to UK soil, Lugovoi and Kovtun attracted attention. It wasn’t just that they were assassins: they looked like assassins, a couple of stage villains from KGB casting. When the pair swapped their casual clothes for “business” attire, their appearance prompted hotel staff to chuckle.

Kovtun was wearing a silvery metallic polyester-type suit and Lugovoi was kitted out in checks. They had matched their shiny outfits with colourful shirts and ties. They wore chunky jewellery. According to hotel manager Goran Krgo, the two men resembled stereotypical eastern European gangsters. “The colours didn’t match, the suits were either too big or too small. They just didn’t look like people who are used to wearing suits. They looked like – I think the expression is: like a donkey with a saddle.” At 3pm, Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in Grosvenor Street. Waiting for them was Tim Reilly, the Russian-speaking head of Erinys; he shook their hands and led them into the boardroom. Pinterest Alexander Litvinenko, in 2002. Photograph: Alistair Fuller/AP The meeting began in typically English style, with talk of the sunny weather. Then Lugovoi steered the conversation round to tea. He suggested they all drink some, joking that the English had cups of tea all the time. Reilly declined and told them he had just drunk water from the cooler. Lugovoi was weirdly persistent.

“They kept on saying to me – don’t you want any [tea], won’t you have any?” Reilly recalled. Heaving with radioactive contamination Reilly served cups of tea to his three guests. He sat to the right of Litvinenko, who was at the head of the table with his back facing the bay window; immediately across the table from Reilly was Lugovoi. Kovtun sat to Lugovoi’s left. He said nothing. After making tea, Reilly – fortuitously for the would-be assassins – went to the loo. We don’t know how the polonium was deployed. The forensic evidence suggests that either Lugovoi or Kovtun slipped it into Litvinenko’s tea. For the next 30 minutes, the tea sat in front of him, a little to his left – an invisible nuclear murder weapon primed to go off. Lugovoi and Kovtun must have been barely listening to the conversation: for them, the only question was, would Litvinenko drink? Litvinenko didn’t drink. One can only imagine what must have been going through Lugovoi’s and Kovtun’s minds when the meeting broke up, his drink untouched.

When nuclear scientists examined the Erinys table, they found that, in Reilly’s damning words, it was “heaving” with radioactive contamination. It appeared there had been substantial spillage. Reilly wondered whether he, too, had been an intended target. One spot in front of where Litvinenko had been sitting showed exceptionally high alpha-radiation readings of more than 10,000 counts a second. Scientists later identified the scene as one of “primary contamination”. That meant the radiation could only have come from deployed polonium. Other parts of the baize had readings of 2,300 counts a second. One chair – where either Lugovoi or Kovtun had been sitting – registered at 7,000 counts a second. The Russians would later claim that it was Litvinenko who had poisoned them, during this, their first significant encounter in Mayfair. All subsequent traces, they said, could be explained by this initial radioactive contact. It was a version they would repeat to Russian state media, which transmitted it as true. This version was easily disproved when Scotland Yard reconstructed Litvinenko’s journey from his home to Green Park using his Oyster card.

He had travelled on the 43 bus, getting on at Friern Barnet, then taking the tube into central London from Highgate station. The bus – vehicle registration LR02 BCX – was found and tested for contamination. There wasn’t any. Lugovoi and Kovtun, by contrast, left a lurid nuclear stain wherever they went, including their hotel rooms, well before their first meeting with Litvinenko. After leaving Erinys, Litvinenko took the pair to his favourite branch of Itsu in Piccadilly Circus, close to the Ritz. They sat downstairs. Polonium was found here, too. The visitors took their leave of Litvinenko. A ghostly glow on the shisha pipe Afterwards, Lugovoi claimed that he and Kovtun strolled around Soho for an hour and a half. They dropped in to a bar, Dar Marrakesh in the Trocadero centre, where Lugovoi smoked a £9 shisa pipe on the terrace. Scotland Yard later retrieved the pipe. It was easy to spot: the handle gave off a ghostly alpha-radiation glow. Back at home in Muswell Hill, Litvinenko felt mildly unwell.

He threw up, just once. His vomiting spasm was due to exposure to radiation – just from being near the poison. Litvinenko thought little of this episode. He had unwittingly survived his first encounter with polonium. At 1am, the would-be killers returned to the Best Western hotel. At some point that day or the next, Lugovoi handled polonium in the privacy of his room, 107. He appears to have transferred it here from one container to another. And to have disposed of it down the bathroom sink. We know this because Lugovoi’s plughole showed massive alpha-radiation readings of 1,500 counts a second. There were lower readings elsewhere in the bathroom, and in the bedroom next door. Kovtun’s room, 306, was also heavily contaminated. Pinterest Andrei Lugovoi, left, and Dmitry Kovtun speak to Ekho Moskvy radio in November 2006. Photograph: Reuters The two Russians had booked into the Best Western for two nights, with Lugovoi paying in advance.

But the next day, 17 October, they abruptly checked out and took a taxi to the Parkes hotel in Beaufort Gardens, Knightsbridge. Lugovoi explained the switch by saying he “didn’t like the condition of the rooms”. The real reason, most probably, was to distance himself from the poison, which he had efficiently tipped down the bathroom U-bend. Front office manager Giuliana Rondini was on duty when the Russians walked in. After chatting, Lugovoi made a request. Was there somewhere fun where he and Kovtun “might meet some girls”? Rondini was used to dealing tactfully with these kinds of inquiries. She recommended a house across the street. “It was well known with girls. It was a brothel,” she said. Failing that, she suggested an Italian restaurant. “It was a place where you could go and have a pizza but also have fun and pick up girls. Pizza with extras, I would say.” About 11.30pm, Lugovoi rang Litvinenko to say that he was missing out on fun times.

He said that he and Kovtun had hired a rickshaw and that they were going on an hour-long joyride through central London – two off-duty assassins enjoying themselves amid the bright lights of Soho. Their rickshaw driver was Polish. He spoke “not bad” Russian. It appears they asked again about girls. The driver recommended a private members’ place in Jermyn Street popular with big-spending Russians. This was HeyJo, a club founded in 2005 by a former fruit-and-veg stall owner from Essex called Dave West. It featured mirrored walls, frilly pink cubicles, waitresses dressed as naughty nurses, and a bronze phallus. There was a dancefloor and a Russian-themed restaurant, Abracadabra, with silver tables. The bordello theme extended to the bathrooms, where water spouted from penis-shaped taps. Lugovoi and Kovtun spent two hours at HeyJo, leaving at 3am. Detectives later found traces of radiation in cubicle nine – on the backrest and cushions. There were low levels on a bench, a table in the restaurant and on a door in the gents’. No polonium was found on the phallus.

The floor was clean. Apparently, the men from Moscow didn’t dance. They didn’t score either. The following morning, as they checked out for their flight back to Moscow, Rondini asked Lugovoi how they got on. His reply was uncharacteristically honest: “We were not lucky that night,” he told her. Tea, from a silver pot Lugovoi’s conversations with his FSB bosses following his first unsuccessful attempt to poison Litvinenko can only be imagined. In short, he had failed. The upshot was that, within days, Lugovoi returned to the UK, this time alone, bringing with him another container of radioactive poison. He flew on 25 October from Moscow to London, on British Airways flight 875. He sat in business class, seat 6K. He arrived shortly after midnight at the Sheraton Park Lane, a hotel overlooking Piccadilly, with a frontage of black classical pillars. Inside, the hotel was rather worn. Lugovoi stayed in room 848, on the eighth floor.

Lugovoi met Litvinenko in the ground-floor Palm Court, an afternoon tearoom furnished in high art-deco style, with Chinese screen paintings, vases and lamps. Litvinenko produced two Orange SIM cards so that he and Lugovoi had a secure way of communicating. As ever, Litvinenko drank tea, from a silver teapot. Lugovoi ordered three glasses of red wine and a Cuban cigar. Pinterest Metropolitan Police’s 3D graphic showing polonium contamination on the green baize tablecloth in Grosvenor Square Photograph: Guardian graphics/Litvinenko Inquiry For unknown reasons, Lugovoi failed to deploy the latest vial of polonium. One possible explanation is that the Palm Court bar had video cameras, which Lugovoi would have seen. Or perhaps he suspected he was being watched. Did the British have him under surveillance? (The answer was no.) It’s possible he had got fresh orders from Moscow. Either way, Lugovoi decided to abort the operation. This left him with a problem: what to do with the poison? Lugovoi’s solution was simple.

In his hotel room, he tipped the polonium down the bathroom sink again, this time mopping it up with a couple of towels. He left the towels for the cleaner. And he appeared to have dumped the container in the white pedal bin next to the lavatory. When scientists later tested Lugovoi’s hotel room they walked into a scene from an atomic horror story. The door to Lugovoi’s room was highly contaminated. It showed a reading of more than 30,000 counts a second. Inside, there was further contamination. The situation in the bathroom was even worse. The inside of the pedal bin registered what scientists called “full-scale deflection”, a monster reading of 30,000-plus. There was radiation everywhere: on the wall under the sink, the floor and bath, plus another massive result from the bathroom door. The two scientists wearing protective gear gazed at their instruments incredulously. They asked to be withdrawn from the room. The team was stood down on safety grounds. The most radioactive towel in history Amazingly, two months later, detectives located the towels that Lugovoi had chucked away. They had ended up stuck in a laundry chute in the hotel’s basement.

A 3ft by 3ft metal service tube ran the full height of the building. At its bottom was a mountain of unwashed sheets and towels. Lugovoi’s bath towel was found in a green laundry bag on a shelf. His hand towel was discovered at the base of the chute. The levels of radiation were so alarming that the towels were sent to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, the UK government nuclear facility. The contamination was unprecedented. The bath towel gave a reading of 6,000 counts a second, or 130,000 becquerels per sq cm. The most extreme object, however, was Lugovoi’s white hand towel. The initial reading came in as full-scale deflection, greater than 10,000 counts a second. Re-tested at Aldermaston, it yielded an astonishing result: in excess of 17m becquerels per sq cm. To put this in context, the equivalent of 10m–30m becquerels absorbed into an adult male’s blood would be likely to be fatal within one month.

The towel was the single most radioactive object recovered by Scotland Yard during its decade-long inquiry into Litvinenko’s murder. Probably the most radioactive towel in history. • Extracted from A Very Expensive Poison by Luke Harding (Guardian Faber £12.99). Buy a copy now for £7.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99. NRC: Backgrounder on Polonium-210 Backgrounder on Polonium-210 Polonium-210 as a poison Polonium-210 is a radioactive isotope that occurs in small amounts in nature and can be made in a nuclear reactor. It has limited uses, mainly in static eliminators. In recent years, polonium made the news because of its use as a poison. Polonium was blamed for the Nov. 23, 2006, death in London of the Russian Alexander Litvinenko. It has also been mentioned as a possible cause of Yassar Arafat's death.

Polonium was discovered by Marie Curie in 1898; she later named it for her homeland of Poland. Though rare, it is found in tobacco and in the soil and air. For industrial purposes, it is produced in milligram amounts in nuclear reactors. Only about 100 grams (a little more than 3 ounces) is believed to be produced worldwide each year. Licensed distributors import a very small amount of polonium-210 into the U.S. each year. Potential Hazards Polonium-210 emits alpha radiation, which cannot penetrate paper or skin, so external exposure does not pose a health risk. It decays quickly, losing half its radiation in 138 days (its half-life). The radioactivity decays away in about two-and-a-half years. In its most common form, most polonium-210 would likely pass through the system without being absorbed. Pure polonium-210 must be handled very carefully. If swallowed or inhaled, this form can be fatal in very small amounts. Once absorbed into the body it can be many times more toxic than cyanide. The alpha radiation can rapidly destroy major organs, DNA and the immune system.

Industrial Uses Vent-type static eliminator Bar-type static eliminator Polonium-210 is used in manufacturing in devices that eliminate static. These devices are designed to meet tough NRC standards and pose no threat to public health or safety. The isotope is combined with silver or other metals in a foil mounted inside a protective cage. The design must be approved by the NRC or a state agency. The design and construction make it highly unlikely someone could ingest the radioactive source during normal operation. Most static elimination devices used in industry are regulated by the NRC as "generally licensed devices." This means that manufacturers and distributors are licensed by the NRC or state regulatory agencies. Customers who purchase the devices become "general licensees" and must comply with NRC or state regulations regarding their safe storage, operation and disposal. Small polonium-210 sources can also be used to check or calibrate instruments. These sources have 0.1 microcurie of radioactivity—an extremely small amount that exempts them from needing an NRC license. Anyone who has an exempt quantity is expected to handle the source using appropriate radiation safety precautions and not attempt to remove the radioactive material. The safety measures are explained in a brochure provided with the source.

Polonium-210 as a poison The chance of someone getting hold of a lethal dose of polonium-210 is very small. Both the form and amount of radiation in exempt sources mean they would pose no health problem if ingested. It would take tens of thousands of these sources to make a fatal dose. It would be extremely difficult—requiring sophisticated lab work—to extract the polonium-210 and render it in a form that could be used to harm someone. It would also be hazardous and expensive, and would violate NRC regulations. March 2016 Page Last Reviewed/Updated Friday, April 08, 2016 Home Russia's Putin honours suspect in Litvinenko poisoning Russia's Putin honours suspect in Litvinenko poisoning Pin it Share Russian MP Andrei Lugovoi speaks during a news conference in Moscow March 12, 2013. The British Government is seeking extradition of Lugovoi for his role in the death of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/Files More MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded a state honour to a man suspected by Britain of using radioactive polonium to poison Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London nearly a decade ago. The medal "for services to the fatherland," second degree, was given to Andrei Lugovoy for his contribution to developing Russia's parliament, according to a citation posted on the official state bulletin. Litvinenko died in a London hospital in 2006. An investigation found he had been exposed to polonium, a radioactive isotope. British authorities named Lugovoy and another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun, as suspects. They have denied involvement, and Russia refused to extradite them to stand trial. Lugovoy is now a member of parliament with a nationalist party. Litvinenko was a Russian state security agent who made allegations about corruption inside the government. He moved with his family to London, saying he feared reprisals. He had meetings with Lugovoy and Kovtun shortly before he fell ill. A public inquiry into his death has been taking place at the High Court in London.

Also on Monday, the Kremlin announced Putin had awarded the "badge of honour" to Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Russian region of Chechnya. The citation said the award was for his professional achievements, long service and civic work. Kadyrov said late on Sunday a Chechen former police officer charged with killing opposition figure Boris Nemtsov may have wanted to punish Nemtsov for defending the publication of satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. (Reporting by Christian Lowe; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) Reblog Putin's Poison? November 27, 2006 | Commentary on Russia Putin's Poison? Peter Brookes Senior Fellow, National Security Affairs Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin. No one has been able to officially implicate the Russian FSB - the domestic successor of the old Soviet KGB - in the assaults. But old-school KGB and CIA veterans are pointing fingers in the direction of the Kremlin and its supporters, the siloviki (powerful ones).

You can see why. For starters, "wet works" (i.e., politically motivated assassination by security services) originated in the early 20th century with the Soviet secret service, the NKVD. (The term comes from the notion that you'd get your hands "wet" with the victim's blood.) And there is plenty of circumstantial evidence linking Russian spetzsluzhba (special services) in political "hits" using poison: In 2003, Yuri Shchekochkin, a journalist and Kremlin critic, died of an "allergic reaction" that was likely a deliberate poisoning. Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of Putin and the war in Chechnya, fell mysteriously ill while flying to negotiate the release of Beslan schoolchildren being held by Chechen terrorists in 2004. (She was ultimately gunned down in Moscow in October.) Also in 2004, pro-West Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushenko, running against pro-Kremlin candidate Viktor Yanukovich, was poisoned by suspected dioxins, making him ill and leaving his face severely disfigured.

And now Litvinenko - a KGB/FSB veteran whose investigations of corruption in Russia reportedly made a lot of enemies among his comrades, the siloviki and the Russian mafia - dies a painful death from ingesting a highly toxic radioactive isotope. Litvinenko was likely a marked man. When the FSB fired him on Putin's orders, he fled into asylum to London's "Moscow on the Thames," becoming a fierce Putin/FSB critic. Most recently, he was investigating the Politkovskaya murder. Russia 's press (much of it now Kremlin-controlled) bristled at the suggestion of Putin's involvement in Litvinenko's death. The Kremlin has dismissed such talk as "sheer nonsense." Sure, Putin is feeling pretty feisty these days; maybe he doesn't care what the world thinks of such brutality. Awash in oil/gas and playing a pivotal role in Iran's nuclear fate, Russian influence is anything but declining. But neither the Kremlin nor the Russian intelligence services derive much benefit from such a risky, high-visibility assassination. Indeed, the potential diplomatic downsides in getting fingered for the killing would be significant.

While off-ing Litvinenko could deter other overseas Putin antagonists from speaking out, if the Kremlin were implicated in killing a regime opponent - a British citizen to boot! - in London, it would certainly put a frost on U.K.-Russian relations. Washington (already unhappy with Putin's de-democratization efforts and heavy-handed energy politics) would also have a hard time ignoring Moscow's murderous machinations. And there's no telling how the European Union would react to Russian government involvement. The current Russia-E.U. Partnership and Cooperation Agreement is already in jeopardy, failing to come up for a vote just last week in Brussels. And there's another obvious possible explanation. When former Russian President Boris Yeltsin disbanded the KGB, many newly unemployed operativniki (operatives) joined Russia's infamous organized crime world. Maybe the Russian Mafiosi didn't appreciate Litvinenko getting into their business - and decided to do something about it. Or perhaps they "did" him after the spetzsluzhba or siloviki put out a score-settling contract on him.

But that still doesn't answer the question of why the Mafiosi would use the dangerous-to-handle Polonium-210 instead of a simple bullet. That points back again to the Russian security services, known for being well schooled in the black art of poisons. So, while it seems quite plausible that Russian cloak and dagger killed Litvinenko, there are other scenarios, too. But if the Kremlin did order Litvinenko's assassination, it casts a frightening new light on the new Russia. Peter Brookes , a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is the author of "A Devil's Triangle: Terrorism, WMD and Rogue States." About the Author

Question: An isotope of which metal was used to poison the Russian Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006?
Answer: Polonium