Dmitri Kovtun said that he and his business partner, Andrei Lugovoi, had met the dissident Russian for no more than 25 minutes, during which he had appeared “absolutely normal”. He rejected claims that he had repeatedly invited the former FSB agent to drink something amid suggestions that Mr Litvinenko might have been poisoned at the hotel.

“Andrei and I were drinking tea and I had a gin. Of course we invited him to drink something, but he said ‘no’ and that was that. We did not keep asking him,” he said.

He said that the meeting had taken place at Mr Litvinenko’s request at 4pm on November 1 at the Millennium Mayfair hotel, where Mr Kovtun and Mr Lugovoi were staying. Mr Litvinenko had wanted to discuss a business meeting they were due to attend with a British company the following day.

“To be honest, we didn’t really understand why he wanted to meet because all of the questions could have been settled on the telephone.”

Russian television gave prominent coverage to the case for the first time last night. President Putin’s denial of any government involvement was the second item on the main evening news of the most popular channel, NTV, which gave a detailed report on Mr Litvinenko’s background and death.

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