Andrei Lugovoi, a Russian businessman and former KGB officer, during an interview with Kommersant on November 23, 2006. Lugovoi met with Alexander Litvinenko in London on November 1, 2006, the day Litvinenko was hospitalized.
Photo: Alexey Kudenko
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Lugovoi Choosing Line of Defense
// Says He Requires Several Days to Reply to Accusations
The scandal surrounding the murder of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko reached new heights yesterday when a resolution was introduced in the US Congress calling on Russia to "cooperate fully" with British authorities on the investigation into the matter. In response, the Russian prosecutor general's office repeated that the accused, Russian businessman and former FSB officer Andrei Lugovoi, will not be extradited to Britain. For his part, Mr. Lugovoi has promised to hold a press conference at which he will prove his innocence and name people who were interested in seeing Mr. Litvinenko dead.
Yesterday the US House of Representatives began to consider a resolution written by Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen that calls on Russia to cooperate fully with Great Britain on the investigation into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. The review of the resolution may have been timed to coincide with an official request from the British authorities that Russia extradite Andrei Lugovoi. According to British Crown Prosecution Service spokeswoman Julie Seddona, the extradition request has already been translated into Russian and may be presented to the Russian authorities as early as today.
In reply, Russian deputy prosecutor general Sabir Kekhlerov made it clear that under no circumstances does Russia intend to hand any of its citizens over to a foreign government. "Great Britain has the right, if they believe they have proven the guilt of one of our citizens, to send all of the materials to us. If the general prosecutor's office believes that the British side has presented us with sufficient grounds, they will be given an appropriate legal appraisal," he said. Subsequently, an Interfax source in the general prosecutor's office said that "it is not a fact that the conclusions of our investigators will coincide with those of the British [investigators]."
"The British prosecutor's office has not given us any documents that could provide an explanation of the accusation that has been made," lawyer Andrei Romanov, who represents Mr. Lugovoi, told Kommersant. "Representatives of the English prosecutor's office have never questioned Andrei Konstantinovich [Lugovoi], even though he publicly stated that he was ready to go to London for questioning if necessary," he said. "The meeting between Mr. Lugovoi and the investigators from Scotland Yard who came to Moscow cannot be called a full interrogation," believes Mr. Romanov. "That was a pre-investigation checkup, and the questions that were asked were of a very general nature. We have not been given a chance to reply to questions that undoubtedly came up during further investigations. After materials from Scotland Yard were handed over to the prosecutor's office, [the prosecutor's office] did nothing about questioning Andrei Konstantinovich." Now Mr. Lugovoi has dropped all talk of going to London, believing that he will simply be sent to jail and be rendered unable to prove his innocence.
Andrei Lugovoi, who calls the British investigation unobjective, told Kommersant that at the beginning of next week he plans to hold a press conference at which he will put forth his own version of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. He declined to reveal any details, hinting only that he had no reason to wish the death of the former FSB officer. Earlier Mr. Lugovoi told Kommersant that he and Alexander Litvinenko had planned to go into business together, a move that he says would have freed Mr. Litvinenko from financial dependence on exiled oligarch and Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky. It is possible that Mr. Lugovoi will go further and point the finger of guilt at Mr. Berezovsky, who was one of the first to publicly accuse Mr. Lugovoi of involvement in the death of Alexander Litvinenko. Mr. Berezovsky's accusations, however, were based on the words of Mr. Litvinenko himself, as well as on preliminary conclusions drawn by Scotland Yard.
Alexander Zheglov and Vlad Trifonov
All the Article in Russian as of May 24, 2007
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