MOSCOW - A second Russian businessman who met murdered ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill is now sick from radiation poisoning, local media quoted medical sources as saying on Friday.
Andrei Lugovoy has damage to vital organs consistent with exposure to dangerous levels of radiation, Interfax news agency reported, the same condition that killed Kremlin critic Litvinenko in London on November 23.
Lugovoy's business partner Dmitry Kovtun is also in hospital and Mario Scaramella, an Italian contact of Litvinenko, has undergone treatment in London for the effects of contamination.
Litvinenko, who was buried in London on Thursday, blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin his poisoning, a charge the Kremlin denied. The case has revived memories of Cold War spying intrigues and strained London-Moscow relations.
Russia's state-controlled Channel One television station broadcast what it said was a telephone interview with Lugovoy.
There was no indication from his voice that he was seriously ill and he made no mention of radiation poisoning in the broadcast comments.
"I feel fine, but nonetheless I am undergoing examination in a Moscow hospital," he told the station.
Interfax said its information on Lugovoy's condition came from his medical notes. "Disruption in the functioning of some organs affected by radiation nuclides has been found (in Lugovoy)," it quoted a medical source as saying.
"Lugovoy's condition is considerably better than that of Kovtun, but he also has symptoms of contamination."
There have been contradictory reports about Kovtun, who met Litvinenko in London along with Lugovoy. Some said he was in critical condition but a lawyer who was in touch with his representatives told Reuters those reports were wrong.
HOTEL MEETING
Litvinenko was killed by a radioactive isotope called polonium 210, which is lethal even in the most minute doses if it finds its way into the bloodstream.
Health experts are preparing to check for radiation at the Russia Today television studio where Lugovoy gave an interview on November 24, a broadcasting source told Reuters.
Checks have already been made at two other locations where Logovoy has been in Russia - the Ekho Moskvy radio station and the British embassy. A small trace was found at the embassy.
Police in Hamburg said in a statement they planned to examine Kovtun's apartment in the German city for traces of polonium 210, following media reports that the Russian businessman had flown from Hamburg to London.
The statement did not say when Kovtun was last in Hamburg.
The Kremlin has expressed displeasure at the prominence given in British media to claims from Russian émigrés that Putin was to blame for Litvinenko's death.
Lugovoy and Kovtun met Litvinenko at London's Millennium Hotel on November 1 for what Lugovoy described as a business meeting. He has denied any part in Litvinenko's poisoning and offered to help police.
The hospital where they are being treated has not been disclosed and their representatives were not answering their telephones on Friday.
British detectives were working in Moscow for a fourth day on Friday as part of their investigation into the murder of Litvinenko, a British citizen.
They have already questioned Kovtun with Russian investigators. One of many theories about Litvinenko's death is that it could have been the work of rogue elements in Russia's intelligence services, working independently of the Kremlin.
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