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Former Russian PM Gaidar 'poisoned'

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Former Russian PM Gaidar 'poisoned'

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 4:24pm GMT 30/11/2006
Page 1 of 4

# Fourth plane caught up in radiation alert

Doctors treating Yegor Gaidar, the former Russian prime minister who is seriously ill, believe he was poisoned, an aide has said.

“Doctors don’t see a natural reason for the poisoning and they have not been able to detect any natural substance known to them” in Mr Gaidar’s body, spokesman Valery Natarov said. “So obviously we’re talking about poisoning (and) it was not natural poisoning.”

Mr Gaidar, prime minister in the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin, fell ill on a business trip to Ireland last week. He was unconscious for three hours and vomited blood and bled from his nose.

His condition stabilised and he was returned to Moscow, where he was hospitalised again.

Meanwhile two Russians who met former KGB colonel Alexander Litvinenko on the day he may have been poisoned have confirmed that they flew on at least one of the British Airways flights that police believe could have been subjected to low level radiocative contamination.

Both Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer who claimed he had been Mr Litvinenko’s business partner for 12 months, and Dmitry Kovtun, another associate initially identified as 'Vladimir’, have visited a Moscow hospital to undergo radiation checks.

The two men, neither of whom are treated as suspects, have been told their results will be available next week. They said they were happy to cooperate with British police.

Mr Kovtun, a consultant for European companies looking to invest in Russia, confirmed he flew back to Moscow aboard a British Airways flight on Nov 3. He arrived in London on Oct 31, the day before his meeting with Mr Litvinenko, from Hamburg.

Authorities have asked passengers aboard British Airways flights between Moscow and Heathrow on October 25, October 28, October 31 and November 3 to come forward.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph last week, Mr Lugovoi said he took the British Airways flight from Moscow on Oct 31 and flew home on Nov 3.

Both men met Mr Litvinenko for afternoon tea at the Millennium Hotel in Grosevnor Square, where radiation has also been found. It was also found at the Itsu restaurant in Piccadilly, which it is believed Mr Litivinenko visited before the hotel. The former spy died last Thursday.

Mr Kovtun and Mr Lugovoi said they had hoped to have been interviewed by Scotland Yard detectives on Tuesday but that contact with British authorities was proving difficult.

Both men have already handed in written statements to the British embassy in Moscow.

“We are now impatiently waiting for British police to arrive,” Mr Kovtun said in Moscow. “For some reason they failed to find us so we had to find them. They have promised to come over but have not told us when.”

Meanwhile, one of the British Airways aircraft remains on the tarmac at Moscow’s Domodedo Airport awaiting examination by experts. Airport officials said they had received no request from the airline to allow the team of experts on board.

A British Airways spokesman in Moscow said staff were waiting for authorization from head office to allow the plane to return to Heathrow. When it does, it fill fly back without passengers.

A Boeing 737 owned by the private Russian carrier Transaero was briefly held in London on suspicion of radioactive contamination. An airline spokesman said the plane had been cleared to return, with its passengers, to Moscow.

“We will conduct checks on all of our eight Boeing 737s that fly the Moscow London route to reassure the public,” said Sergei Buykhal.

The Russian transport authorities have announced additional radiation checks for all foreign airlines flying into the country. Russian aircraft, however, will not be examined.

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November 30, 2006 at 12:07 PM in KGB | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home