Britain Seeks Extradition of Ex-KGB Agent
Moscow Rejects Request In Poisoning of Putin Critic

By Mary Jordan and Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

LONDON, May 22 -- British prosecutors demanded Tuesday that Russia extradite a former KGB agent to stand trial for murder in the sensational radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In Moscow, Russian officials immediately responded that they had no intention of turning over Andrei Lugovoy, who met with Litvinenko at central London's Millennium Hotel for tea on Nov. 1, the day he became ill.

The Russian constitution bans the extradition of its citizens, Russian officials said. Analysts in Britain and Russia predicted that Lugovoy would never face justice in Britain. Still, British officials said they intended to pursue a case that left a trail of radiation around London and lingering tension between the British and Russian governments.

In Russia, Lugovoy was quoted by Russian news agencies Tuesday as saying that he had no motive to kill Litvinenko and that the British case against him is "political."

"I'm a victim, not a perpetrator, of a radiation attack," Lugovoy told Russian television. "Within the next week we'll make a statement regarding events in which Litvinenko and myself were involved last year. I think I'll say a few things which will be sensational to a British audience."

British doctors said Litvinenko, 43, a British citizen who himself had worked in Russian intelligence, was poisoned by the radioactive isotope polonium-210-- the cup and teapot he used were later found to be "smoking," according to people close to the investigation. His body began wasting away and the exceptionally fit man faded into a ghostlike figure as his organs shut down. He died Nov. 23.

His death led to the temporary grounding of several airliners on which suspects had flown and triggered fear among hotel guests, waiters, hospital workers and others who had contact with Litvinenko. Hundreds of people, including some in the United States, were tested for radiation poisoning. British officials said that 17 were found to have traces of polonium-210 in their systems but that it posed no significant health threat to them.

"I have today concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoy with the murder of Mr. Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning," said Ken Macdonald, director of public prosecutions. He called Litvinenko's slaying an "extraordinarily grave crime." Following British judicial practice, he gave no details of the evidence.

Putin, who is scheduled to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a summit of industrial nations in Germany next month, had no immediate comment on the prosecutors' move.

Lugovoy, 41, was one of two Russians whom British detectives interviewed in Moscow after finding a radioactive trail that appeared to match their movements. German authorities said they found traces of polonium-210 in a Hamburg apartment that the second man, Dmitry Kovtun, visited before flying to London. He accompanied Lugovoy to the meeting with Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel's Pine Bar.

Macdonald did not mention Kovtun on Tuesday. A person close to the police investigation said prosecutors felt they had the strongest evidence to pursue a murder case against Lugovoy.

Litvinenko was a lieutenant colonel in the Federal Security Service, or FSB, a domestic intelligence service and a successor agency of the KGB. In the 1990s, he fell out with his superiors and spent months in jail awaiting trial on charges of abusing his position. He was acquitted and fled in 2000 to London, where he was granted asylum.

In exile, Litvinenko surrounded himself with other Putin critics. He publicly implicated Russian authorities in a series of apartment bombings in Russia in 1999 that the government blamed on Chechen terrorists.

Litvinenko's family and friends say he dictated a statement on his deathbed accusing Putin of being behind his poisoning.

Alex Goldfarb, who has acted as a family spokesman, said in a telephone interview that "it is obvious" Lugovoy did not secure the rare, exceedingly expensive poison himself. Ninety-seven percent of the legal production of the isotope, one of the world's rarest industrial products, takes place at a closely guarded nuclear reactor in Russia near the Volga River 450 miles southeast of Moscow.

"Clearly it was a state-sponsored job. But who within the Russian state? . . . It must be someone very, very high up," Goldfarb said. "It is unrealistic to think Putin will surrender the perpetrator because he will tell the whole plot to the British."

Adding to the extraordinary details of the case is the involvement of Boris Berezovsky, a Russian billionaire and fierce Putin foe who lives in exile in London. Berezovsky was friendly with both Litvinenko, whom he helped financially when he arrived in London, and Lugovoy, who worked for him when he lived in Russia.

Russian officials have sought the extradition of Berezovsky, accusing him of fraud and other criminal offenses. Britain has refused; Berezovsky has dismissed the charges as a politically motivated campaign against him.

Berezovsky said in a Russian radio interview Tuesday that "bringing charges against Lugovoy effectively means bringing charges against the Russian state, or, to be more precise, against Putin personally, as someone who is at the top of the vertical structure of power."

Russian officials, meanwhile, have insinuated that Berezovsky may have ordered the killing to tar the reputation of Putin.

Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, called the Russian ambassador, Yuri Fedotov, to the Foreign Office on Tuesday and said afterward that "we expect full cooperation from the Russian authorities in bringing the perpetrator to face British justice."

British authorities said they based their extradition case on Russia's signature in 2001 of the 1957 European Convention on Extradition. But experts in extradition law said the treaty allows Russia the option of not extraditing one of its citizens.

Marina Gridneva, a spokeswoman for the Russian prosecutor general's office, said, "Citizens of Russia cannot be turned over to foreign states." She suggested that Lugovoy could be put on trial in Russia with input from British prosecutors.

Litvinenko's widow, Marina, told reporters she was pleased that a suspect had been officially named in her husband's death. "It is important to me that my husband didn't die in vain," she said.

Finn reported from Moscow. Special correspondent Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.