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Polonium killing contaminated 140 people: watchdog

At least 140 people in London were contaminated with radioactivity as a result of the assassination of the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko last November, according to government health advisers.

Several hotel staff and guests were exposed to polonium-210, the radioactive isotope which was used to poison Litvinenko, along with police officers, hospital staff, and a number of his relatives and friends.

While the Health Protection Agency (HPA) says that the majority of these people will not suffer any ill health as a result, 17 people have been warned that they may face long-term health risks.

Several are already claiming criminal compensation as a result of the mental trauma of being told that they have been contaminated, but have been told by lawyers that they may receive no more than GBP1,400 for this.

Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general (the senior government law officer), on Friday repeated demands for the prime suspect in the murder case to be handed over to British authorities. During face-to-face talks in Munich with Russia's chief prosecutor, Yuri Chaika, he said that Andrei Lugovoi must be extradited to stand trial in Britain. "I have spoken to the Russian prosecutor general today to stress that this was a most grave and reckless crime, which killed one man and endangered the safety of many others," he said.

In an article for today's London-based Guardian newspaper, Russian ambassador Yuri Fedotov writes: "The Russian prosecutor general is awaiting formal details of the case against Lugovoi before making a decision on what action to take. There is no reason why evidence against him cannot be used in a Russian court of law."

Some 618 people living in the UK were tested by the HPA to see whether they had been exposed to polonium between November 1 last year, when the isotope was slipped into a pot of tea which Litvinenko was drinking at the Millennium hotel in central London.

The tests showed that 137 had been exposed to polonium, 17 of them at levels which are not high enough to cause immediate health problems, but which could present a long-term risk to health.

This group includes Litvinenko's widow, Marina, and a number of people who worked in the hotel's bar. The HPA says that "any increased risk in the long term is likely to be very small."
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