Murder spy hotel staff poisoned by dishwasher

And seven staff were contaminated by the dishwasher that cleaned the cup, police believe.

The former KGB officer is known to have drunk at the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel on November 1, the day he fell ill.

Now officers believe the radioactive polonium 210 that killed him on November 23 was slipped into the drink, it emerged last night.

The hotel bar has become the centre of inquiries - rather than the sushi restaurant he visited on the same day that was previously thought to be the place he was poisoned.

Seven staff working at the Pine Bar on November 1 have been contaminated with low levels of polonium-210.

They have been told by the Health Protection Agency they face no shortterm damage but a very small increased risk of cancer in the long run.

Police inquiries suggest they were contaminated by the dishwasher that cleaned Mr Litvinenko's tea cup.

The HPA has also spoken to Thames Water about the possibility of the local water supply being contaminated by water from the dishwasher.

No contamination has been detected so far, but water supplies are still being tested. More than 200 customers who visited the hotel bar that day are also to be screened.

Mr Litvinenko met three Russians at the Mayfair hotel on the day he fell ill - Andrei Lugovoi, Dmitry Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko.

Police were due to question ex-KGB officer Mr Lugovoi yesterday in Russia but cancelled amid claims he has radiation poisoning. He and business associate Mr Kovtun are undergoing medical checks.

One Russian news agency said last night Mr Lugovoi's internal organs have malfunctioned, while Mr Kovtun is in a coma.

Meanwhile, the woman who revealed that Mr Litvinenko was at the centre of a blackmail plot yesterday told how she had dismissed him as a fantasist, until he died.

Julia Svetlichnaja, 33, a politics student at Westminster University, said her academic work brought her into contact with the KGB defector, who boasted of plans to extort cash from senior Russian spies and agents.

She told how he was so indiscreet that she did not believe his tales of Russian corruption. It was only when he died she realised the significance of his alleged blackmail threats.

The Russian academic said: "He shared his blackmail plans and other stories and said he needed money.

"Mr Litvinenko told me the names of individuals and companies. One was a famous Russian oligarch, another was very close to the Kremlin."

But Mr Litvinenko's friends said the former agent would not speak so openly to a stranger and warned her claims may be a Kremlin smear.

t.yaqoob@dailymail.co.uk