Russia and Britain in Lugovoi extradition row

RUSSIAN prosecutors yesterday said they have officially refused Britain’s request to extradite a businessman accused in last year’s fatal poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika’s office said its refusal to turn over Andrei Lugovoi was based on a constitutional prohibition against turning Russian citizens over to foreign countries, as well as a European convention that allows signatories to refuse to extradite their nationals.

Extraditing Lugovoi “is not deemed possible”, the office said in a statement, adding that it had informed the Home Office of the decision. The Home Office had no comment.

In May, Britain accused Lugovoi, a former KGB agent-turned-businessman, of involvement in the killing of Litvinenko, who died in a London hospital in November from a fatal dose of the radioactive substance, polonium-210.

Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin had emphasised that Lugovoi would not be extradited. Putin called the British request “stupidity”, saying British authorities should have known about the Russian constitutional prohibition.

In a statement, Chaika’s office also said it would consider investigating Lugovoi as a suspect if Britain makes such a request and provides sufficient evidence to justify it.

But Russian authorities have tried to turn the tables on Britain by opening their own investigation into allegations of British espionage made by Lugovoi, who also said British secret services and a self-exiled tycoon could have had a hand in Litvinenko’s death.

The case has roiled relations between London and Moscow and strained already tense ties between Russia and the West, where governments and rights groups are concerned about the treatment of Putin’s opponents.

Following initial Russia media reports of the refusal to extradite, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the British government had not received any formal communication from Russian authorities.