The rare radioactive substance used to poison Alexander Litvinenko in London could only have come from Russia, a world-leading expert has told the inquiry into the former spy’s murder.



Norman Dombey, emeritus professor of theoretical physics at the University of Sussex, said the polonium was produced at a closed nuclear facility in the city of Sarov, 450 miles south-east of Moscow. Its Soviet-era Avangard plant was the only place in the world with a polonium “production line”, he said.

“In my opinion, the Russian state, or its agents, was responsible for the poisoning,” Dombey said.

Litvinenko died after drinking a cup of tea laced with radioactive polonium-210, during a meeting in November 2006 at a Mayfair hotel. Two Russians – Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun – have been charged with his murder. The Kremlin has insisted that the polonium involved did not come from Russia.

Metropolitan police’s 3D graphic showing polonium contamination in the teapot. From green (low) to purple (high). Photograph: www.litvinenkoinquiry.org

Dombey said the quantity used to kill Litvinenko – he swallowed an astonishing 26.5 microgrammes – was exceptionally large. All other countries, including the US and UK, stopped making polonium in the 1970s. Avangard was the last remaining source of commercial polonium, with no other nuclear facility capable of making sufficient quantities.

The scientist said that different steps were involved. First, he said, the Mayak nuclear reactor in the Urals irradiated bismuth. The bismuth was then transported to Avangard and converted into polonium. Next, a “state institution” would have converted it from “metallic” to “soluble” form. Finally, Lugovoi and Kovtun smuggled it to London, he suggested.

Doctors only identified polonium as the poison hours before Litvinenko died. Unlike other radioactive substances, it emits alpha rather than gamma particles. “This poisoning was not meant to be discovered,” Dombey concluded. “It was meant to be a mysterious poisoning because polonium is an alpha-emitter which a Geiger counter doesn’t pick up.”

He also said the Russians involved in the murder plot would have tested the poison in advance. Too small a dose would have been ineffective; too big would have been a massive risk to public health. Citing sources in Russia, Dombey said Russian agents had previously tested polonium on a Chechen, Lecha Islamov, who was serving a nine-year sentence in jail.

Prison bosses summoned him for a chat. They offered him a snack and a cup of tea. Within five minutes of drinking the tea, Islamov fell violently ill, Dombey said. He died shortly afterwards from a mysterious illness, with symptoms similar to Litvinenko’s: hair loss, a catastrophic decline in white blood cells and multiple major organ failure.



Dombey said that, given polonium’s short half life of 138 days, the poison would probably have been produced a “couple of months” before Litvinenko’s poisoning.

The inquiry continues.