Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi gives a press conference due to the investigation of Alexander Litvinenko's murder in London.
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Andrei Lugovoi Testifies for Case
// FSB began criminal investigation of espionage
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Friday that it had initiated a criminal case on charges of treason in the form of espionage. The cause is the speech of businessman Andrei Lugovoi, accused by British prosecutors of murdering former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London. Lugovoi said that Litvinenko and political emigrant Boris Berezovsky were agents of British MI6. Berezovsky’s attorneys admit of a possibility that their defendant might become a suspect soon. Berezovsky himself said the espionage case is a “covering operation”.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Friday that on June 14th, 2007, after “checking the statement of Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi, the investigatory department of FSB, with the agreement of the Prosecutor General’s Office, initiated a criminal case on espionage suspicions, according to Article 276 of the Criminal Code”. At the same time, FSB refused pointblank to name the persons involved in the new case, and to give detailed comments.
The case was initiated after Lugovoi’s press conference on May 31st in Interfax news agency, where he said that Alexander Litvinenko and Boris Berezovsky were MI6 agents and were trying to enroll him for the task of collecting damaging information on Russia’s top officials, including President Vladimir Putin. “Please consider my words as an official address to the Prosecutor General’s Office,” Lugovoi said.
Boris Berezovsky’s attorney Andrei Borovkov said “the story with Lugovoi’s speech and the initiation of a criminal case after it looks like a badly-played show”. The attorney has not received subpoenas from FSB, but he said he will not be surprised if “Boris Berezovsky appears soon” as a suspect or a defendant in the new criminal case.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 16, 2007
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