UK: 1 more person shows signs of polonium-210 contamination
Person was visitor to same hotel where poisoned former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko met a Moscow-based businessmen.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFlitvinenko 88(photo credit: )
One more person has shown signs of low-level exposure to polonium-210, the radioactive isotope that killed former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, bringing the total to 16, British health authorities said Thursday.
The Health Protection Agency said the person was a visitor to The Pine Bar, at London's Millennium Hotel, on Nov. 1.
Litvinenko fell ill on Nov. 1 after meeting Moscow-based businessmen Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun at the hotel.
The former security agent, a critic of the Russian leadership who lived in exile in London, died Nov. 23 from a lethal dose of polonium-210.
In a deathbed statement, he accused Russia's President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder, an allegation the Kremlin has denied.
Of the 15 people who previously tested positive for contamination with polonium-210 since Litvinenko was poisoned, nine worked at the Millennium Hotel. The hotel's Pine Bar has remained off limits to the public since being closed Dec. 8.
