The First Assassination of the 21st Century

Police suspect that Litvinenko was poisoned at the Millennium Hotel on November 1 and that the polonium, most likely dissolved in some kind of tasteless liquid solution, was slipped into his tea before or during his meeting with the Russian businessmen.The polonium-210 lined Litvinenko's gastrointestinal tract. From there, it seeped into his bloodstream and spread throughout his body, first targeting rapidly dividing cells-hair, skin, stomach, bone marrow. He probably received a much larger dose than was strictly needed to kill him, somewhere between one and 10 gigabecquerels. (A becquerel is a measure of radioactivity amounting to one alpha-particle emission per second. Ten gigabecquerels, the maximum suspected dose, would have delivered 10 billion alpha emissions per second.) The amount was so great, he had no hope of survival. Litvinenko is the first person known to have died of polonium-210 exposure, and the first murdered with it.

The businessmen from the Millennium meeting deny any involvement in his death, although traces of radiation were found along the paths they took in the days prior to the meeting. The trail of alpha radiation across London suggests that whoever poisoned Litvinenko did so at great personal risk. Inhaling it by accident, for instance, would have meant certain death.

Sites within the hotel, as well as several items of tableware, showed extremely high levels of polonium-210. The door to the men's room was so contaminated that public-health officials removed it and disposed of it as nuclear waste. Litvinenko's home and office were tainted by polonium-210, as were seats in airplanes, taxis and parts of a soccer stadium. You still can't book certain hotel rooms in London because they're buzzing with traces of polonium-210. "We're not dealing with scientists here who would have realized the hazards of the material," says one source familiar with the investigation.

If the purpose of the assassination was to send a warning to other dissidents, the assassins chose their weapon wisely: Polonium-210 creates all the terror of a nuclear strike without the risk of massive fatalities. Since polonium-210 was first identified in the case on November 23, the British Health Protection Agency has monitored about 40 sites; at least 20 of them had significant levels of polonium-210 contamination. The health agency has also tested the urine of about 700 people, earning it the nickname "the piss palace" among the staff. To date, 17 individuals have shown elevated levels of polonium-210.
Despite widespread fear of contamination, there was never any threat to the general public. "Polonium is useless as a weapon of mass destruction," Regan says. If it had been poured into London's water supply instead of Litvinenko's tea, for example, it would have dispersed so quickly that no one would have received a dangerous dose.