Details Pertinent to Bungler (Kovtun)-Murder Hypothesis 2.2

More details, from washingtonpost.com, about Bungler (Kovtun)-Murder Hypothesis 2.2:

German authorities said Sunday they found traces of polonium-210 at a Hamburg apartment where Kovtun is believed to have spent the night before he left for London to meet Litvinenko. The substance was found on a couch where Kovtun is believed to have slept.

Tests on radioactive traces found in the passenger seat of the BMW car that picked up Kovtun from the Hamburg airport showed that "it is definitely polonium," police spokesman Andreas Schoepflin said Monday.

Radioactive traces also have been found on a document Kovtun brought to Hamburg immigration authorities; and at the home of Kovtun's ex-mother-in-law outside Hamburg _ again from before the Nov. 1 meeting.

German prosecutors did not say whether they suspect Kovtun might have been involved in Litvinenko's death. But they said they were investigating him on suspicion he may have improperly handled radioactive material.

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"We still believe that both variants are possible: that he may be a victim, but also that he may have been involved, at least in procuring the polonium," prosecutor Martin Koehnke said Sunday.

But Kovtun is said to have been a "fierce critic" of the Kremlin. So was he a double agent -- or is it true after all, as some Russians supposedly claim, that Litvinenko's death was a scheme to discredit the Kremlin?