Russian spy poison plot thickens

LONDON: The bizarre Russian spy poison plot thickened with an autopsy on Alexander Litvinenko's poison-wracked body on Friday, confirmation that at least two British Airways planes had been contaminated by the deadly isotope Polonium 210 and the British government telling parliament that 12 of 24 London locations showed traces of radioactivity.

Even as another Russian poison mystery emerged with the family of former prime minister Yegor Gaidar alleging he too had been poisoned while attending a conference in Ireland last week, the post mortem on Litvinenko's body set out to establish the sequence and chronology of events that ended in his mysterious death in London.

The widening investigation into the former KGB colonel's death has already seen British Airways embark on the difficult process of contacting at least 33,000 passengers and 3,000 staff because they flew on planes thought to be contaminated. Amid raging speculation about the radioactive trail left by Litvinenko's alleged assassins, experts suggested that the polonium-210 traces found at various London locations could have leaked from a container.

Alternatively, they say, the highly-toxic alpha-emitting radioactive poison could have been present in people's bodily fluids. But even as the public health scare reached bizarre and unsustainable levels and the British home secretary made a statement in Parliament confirming that half of the 24 crime-scene locations in London were radioactive, Litvinenko's alleged killers were said to have most likely dropped the polonium on the floor of a leading London hotel.

According to reports in the British press, Scotland Yard is focusing on "rogue elements" in the Russian state and tentatively ruling out involvement by the Kremlin and President Putin. Police are said to be interested in the movements of five or more Russian men who are alleged to have arrived in London from Moscow to watch a football match.

Friday's post mortem comes exactly 24 hours after the inquest into Litvinenko's death opened and was adjourned at a London court with the coroner darkly confirming that the level of polonium-210 in his system showed it had come from a source "other than a natural one".

Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb, also a Russian dissident and London-based exile, told the inquest that the flights being investigated by BA and by police "reinforces the theory that the origin of this material (Polonium 210) that killed Alexander was in Moscow".

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Britain's culture secretary Tessa Jowell and the head of London's 2012 Olympics bid, Lord Sebastian Coe travelled on one of the radiation-contaminated aircraft in the course of their official work.

Scotland Yard's tentative all-clear for Putin comes after more than a week of hysterical speculation over Moscow's dark and deadly deeds.