LONDON (AP) - Radiological testing has been ordered for three people who may have come into contact with the poison that killed a former KGB agent turned Kremlin critic, health officials said Monday, as the government opened a formal inquest into his death. Traces of radiation were found at two restaurants and the home of the ex-spy, Alexander Litvinenko. Health officials, however, said there was no immediate public health danger.
Hundreds who went to the Millennium Hotel or Itsu Sushi—or came into contact with Litvinenko in the past month_ called a health hotline after the former's spy death on Thursday, but only 18 people were referred to the Health Protection Agency. Out of those 18, three exhibited symptoms that health officials thought should be examined at a special clinic as a precaution, said Katherine Lewis, a spokeswoman for the agency. She refused to elaborate.
Health officials will test the urine of the three—none of whom were health workers who treated Litvinenko, Lewis said. The tests should take about a week.
Litvinenko, 43, died of heart failure after falling ill from what doctors said was poisoning by the radioactive element polonium-210. The substance is deadly if ingested or inhaled.
The sushi restaurant where he ate before falling ill on Nov. 1 was still being decontaminated. Tests were still under way at the hotel to determine if it also should be decontaminated, protection agency officials said.
Although an autopsy has not started yet because of concerns over radioactivity, the inquest could begin as early as Thursday, according to Matt Cornish, a spokesman for the Camden Council. The local government body oversees the North London Coroner's Court. The opening is a legal formality, and such inquests are almost always adjourned immediately, sometimes for months.
Coroner's inquests in Britain are meant to determine the cause of death but they can sometimes cast blame.
Last month, a coroner investigating the death of a British television journalist shot by U.S. troops in Iraq in March 2003 criticized U.S. authorities for failing to name Marines involved in the incident. Another inquest ruled that a second British cameraman was murdered by an Israeli soldier in Gaza.
British officials have avoided blaming Moscow for the death of Litvinenko but a diplomatic backlash deepened on Monday with continued emergency talks over the spy's death—an issue that could overshadow negotiations over energy issues and Russia's cooperation on Iran's nuclear ambitions.
In the strongest comments leveled at Moscow since the ex-spy's death, Cabinet minister Peter Hain on Sunday accused Putin of presiding over "huge attacks on individual liberty and on democracy" and said that relations between London and Moscow were at a difficult stage.
Hain, the government's Northern Ireland secretary, said Putin's tenure had been clouded by incidents "including an extremely murky murder of the senior Russian journalist" Anna Politkovskaya. Litvinenko had been investigating her murder.
Opposition leaders, meanwhile, have demanded an explanation from the government on how the deadly polonium-210 came to be in Britain.
Home Secretary John Reid planned to make an emergency statement on the Litvinenko case to the House of Commons later Monday.
Before his death, Litvinenko told police he believed he was poisoned Nov. 1 while investigating the October slaying of Politkovskaya, another critic of Putin's government. London's Metropolitan Police said they were investigating it as a "suspicious death" rather than murder. They have not ruled out the possibility that Litvinenko may have poisoned himself.
