One of the two Russians who had drinks with Alexander Litvinenko on the day the ex-security service agent fell mortally ill has said he was on one of the British Airways aircraft being tested for radiation, a Russian newspaper reported Thursday.
KGB veteran turned businessman Andrei Lugovoy told Kommersant that he flew from London to Moscow on one of the "contaminated" aircraft on November 3, according to a report on the newspaper's web site.
The British Airways aircraft that flew from London Heathrow to Moscow on November 3 is one of those listed on the company's web site as being involved in the investigation into Litvinenko's death.
Lugovoy told the newspaper that he had nothing to do with the alleged radiation poisoning of Litvinenko, noting that traces of radiation could be found on anyone who came into contact with the victim.
Lugovoy told Moscow Echo radio station last week that he and a colleague drank gin at a central London hotel with Litvinenko on November 1, the day he is believed to have been poisoned.
He said that Litvinenko, who died in hospital last week, did not order anything.
Lugovoy said he and business partner Dmitry Kovtun met Litvinenko, a fellow former security services officer, to discuss business deals, the AFP reported.
According to the list of polonium-contaminated planes printed yesterday in Britain, Lugovoy, together with another suspect, "Volodya", aka "Vyacheslav", was also on the flight from Moscow to London on October 31, 2006, just a day BEFORE Litvinenko's poisoning. On November 24, 2006, when nobody knew yet that the planes had been contaminated, Lugovoy told a Moscow radio station his travel schedule. The whole story, especially Lugovoy keeping silence today about his flight to London on October 31 together with "Volodya", makes this group of Russian very suspicious.
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