Spy's Poisoning May Have Been Earlier (Litvinenko)

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2722573

Spy's Poisoning May Have Been Earlier
Witness Says Former Russian Spy Alexander Litvinenko Was Poisoned Earlier Than Is Believed

MOSCOW Dec 13, 2006 (AP)— A key witness in the radiation death of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko claimed the poisoning took place earlier than is generally believed, according to a newspaper interview published Wednesday.

Andrei Lugovoi, also a former Russian intelligence agent, met with Litvinenko to discuss business at London's Millennium Mayfair Hotel on Nov. 1, a few hours before Litvinenko fell ill.

But Lugovoi said in an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that he thinks Litvinenko may have been poisoned two weeks earlier, on the day he and Lugovoi met another business associate, Dmitry Kovtun.

...

Lugovoi told the tabloid newspaper that he, Kovtun and Litvinenko met in the office of a security company in London Oct. 16. He suggested that they all could have been contaminated during Lugovoi and Kovtun's mid-October visit to London.

...

British authorities, meanwhile, discovered traces of polonium-210 in the security company offices.