inenko with radioactive polonium and demanded his extradition, putting London and Moscow on a diplomatic collision course. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it wanted to bring suspect Andrei Lugovoy before a British court and charge him with the “extraordinarily grave crime” of murdering exiled Russian Litvinenko in London last November.
Britain’s Foreign Office summoned the Russian ambassador and told him in strong terms it expected “full cooperation” over Lugovoy’s case but Russia’s Prosecutor-General office said the constitution prevented it from extraditing Russian citizens.
“No one should be under any doubt about the seriousness with which we regard this case. Murder is murder,” Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman said.
Lugovoy denied the accusation and told the state-owned Itar-Tass: “I consider this decision politically motivated.”
The murkiest case of murder and espionage since the Cold War had already strained diplomatic relations with Britain and the extradition move looked certain to aggravate tensions further.
Blair’s spokesman stressed Britain had important political and economic ties with Russia. “This doesn’t in any way obviate the need for the international rule of law to be respected, and we will not in any way shy away from trying to ensure that happens in a case such as this,” he said.
Russian prosecutors said they would give their full attention to any charges against Lugovoy once they had received official documents from Britain, and opened the possibility he could be tried in his homeland.
Ties between Russia and the European Union are frosty on a range of issues from missile defense to human rights. European energy producers rely on huge oil and gas imports from Russia.
Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who had become a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin in exile, met Lugovoy and another Russian businessman, Dmitry Kovtun, at the Pine Bar of London’s Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1 last year.
Within hours, he had fallen severely ill. He suffered an agonizing death over the next three weeks as his organs gradually failed. Images of his emaciated body, hooked up to medical tubes, were published around the world.
Doctors eventually diagnosed poisoning by polonium 210, a highly toxic radioactive isotope.
