enough, is called traitors. it names and shames individuals who are supposedly enemies of the russian state. lugovoi s high profile here is just one reason that many people who suspect him of murder don t think he acted on his own. another reason, all of the polonium 210 in russia is under the control of the state. it s impossible to use a state-controlled substance like this without the knowledge of the very top of the country. reporter: because you re unleashing a radioactive substance? it s almost it s a tiny, little dirty bomb. it s nuclear terrorism. coming up. where does this trail really lead? of all his enemies. he may have infuriated one more than any other. i said that this was a very dangerous thing to do because you re personalizing this. what about him?
have never been friends. he was a very complicated person, slightly crazy, i would say. he was given to conspiracy theories, to blowing things up out of all proportion. reporter: he and litvinenko both used to work for the fsb. both had served time in jail. it was a bond between them. lugovoi had done very well in business after that and opened a security consulting firm. he says he and litvinenko met several times in london to discuss doing business there together, including that now infamous meeting in the pine bar, where scotland yard says litvinenko was poisoned. lugovoi says the meeting was no big deal. so what do you remember about sitting there at the table? i remember that we talked with litvinenko about nothing in particular. and now for eight years, i am under suspicion. reporter: you re under suspicion because the investigation says there was polonium in that teapot.
certainly didn t shed any tears when that happened, but laughs off the notion that the russian state was connected in any way. for one simple reason he thinks russian agents would have done a better job. i m surprised that the uk special services and the uk court accuses russia and lugovoi that with a bag of polonium they came to london and were just throwing it around. reporter: it just doesn t make sense to a lot of people that russia didn t kill him. for 100 years the russian special services have been using the kind of substances for killing people that you never will be able to recognize. why do we have to go into some kind of a bar and put it in somebody s tea cup and everybody s laughing at it? i mean, the state cannot be involved in that. reporter: litvinenko s friend paul joyal, who believes he was the target of a botched assassination, agrees that, in some ways, litvinenko s killers were indeed clumsy and careless. but he says that s because they
a person s weakest spot is his family, and i m a rational man. even if i had taken part in an operation, even if i had known what was in the container, would i take my family along? i am a rational man. i couldn t do it. reporter: not only did he continue to maintain his innocence, he offered his own theory about who poisoned the tea. could someone have put something in there without you noticing? no, why don t you think that the polonium may have been put there into the cup after our meeting the next day or by a guy from mi6? he brings the polonium and pours it into the cup. that s agatha christie stuff. reporter: mi6 is british intelligence. lugovoi says perhaps the brits killed litvinenko to embarrass russia. retired mi6 analyst glenmore trenear-harvey says that s nonsense. if for no other reason because mi6 would never use such an expensive weapon to kill anyone.
did you put any polonium in the tea? of course not. i was tested for polonium, and i tested positive. did i put polonium into myself? am i an idiot? am i crazy? reporter: but scotland yard detectives don t believe lugovoi s denials. in fact, they think he tried kill litvinenko more than once. that s because they found polonium on the table in a conference room where he and litvinenko had met two weeks before the pine bar encounter. was anything spilled on the table? richard, you are asking questions. i remember some things, i don t remember other things. i cannot answer these questions because these can be used against me in the court, which is done frequently. reporter: as for his last meeting with litvinenko at the pine bar, lugovoi says there s no way he brought polonium on that trip because his wife and children were with him.