The Litvinenko Inquiry

up with old friends and former family members. The secondary contamination that
was discovered in the places Mr Kovtun visited, whilst important, is no more than
consistent with the contamination discovered in London that is linked to Mr Kovtun’s
movements both before and after his time in Hamburg.
6.206 The single piece of evidence about Mr Kovtun’s time in Hamburg that stands out from
the rest is the account given by D3 of a brief conversation that he had with Mr Kovtun
during the evening of Monday 30 October 2006.
6.207 D3 was interviewed by German investigators on five occasions – three times in
December 2006, once in January 2007 and once (at the request of the British police)
in September 2010. Transcripts were made of each interview and extensive sections
of each of these transcripts were read into the record during DI Mascall’s evidence on
Day 30 of the Inquiry hearings. 190
6.208 The core of the account that D3 gave in the course of the interviews was straightforward.
6.209 D3 said that he was an old friend of Mr Kovtun, having known him since 1996 when
they both worked as waiters at the Il Porto restaurant in the harbour area of Hamburg.
They had kept in touch after both of them had left Il Porto, occasionally meeting up to
play chess and have a beer. D3 said that Mr Kovtun had telephoned him on Monday
30 October and asked if they could meet. He wasn’t surprised by this – it was normal
for Mr Kovtun to call out of the blue and suggest meeting up.
6.210 D3 said that they had indeed met up that evening. Initially, Mr Kovtun came to the
Tarantella restaurant where D3 was having a meal with a friend, D5. Later, all three left
the restaurant, intending to go to a casino. D5 went ahead, leaving D3 and Mr Kovtun
walking alone. This was the point at which, on D3’s account, the critical conversation
took place.
6.211 When he was first interviewed by the German police on 9 December 2006, D3 made
no mention of this conversation at all. He gave a brief narrative of the evening, in
which he passed straight from leaving the restaurant, to a short stay in a games
arcade on the Steindamm, to returning home. 191
6.212 However, when D3 was interviewed for a second time, less than two weeks later on
21 December 2006, he gave a far more detailed account. I have set out the critical
section of the interview transcript below: 192
190
Mascall 30/41-115
191
Mascall 30/47
192
Mascall 30/56-57
Part 6 | Chapters 1 to 8 | The polonium trail – events in October and November 2006
A: “We all three left the restaurant. We wanted to go to the casino on the
Steindamm. Witness D5 went ahead because he wanted to meet somebody.
Afterwards he was going to come to the gambling casino, however. I do not
know who he wanted to meet. It happened when Dmitri and I were now alone
and he told me this tale.
Q: What did he say to you word for word?
A: Dmitri asked whether I knew Litvinenko or had heard of him. I answered
no. Dmitri said word for word, ‘Litvinenko was a traitor, there is blood on his
hands.’ He went on to say that Litvinenko does deals with Chechnya and then
he asked me whether I knew a cook who was working in London. I told him
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