U.K. Says Russian Faces Charge Over Litvinenko Murder

May 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. prosecutors said Andrei Lugovoi, a former Russian intelligence officer, should be charged with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a critic of Russia's government who died in London in November from radiation poisoning.

``I have today concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoi with the murder of Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning,'' the U.K. Director of Public Prosecutions Ken MacDonald said in an e-mailed statement. A prosecution ``would clearly be in the public interest.''

MacDonald said he had instructed lawyers to immediately seek the extradition of Lugovoi from Russia so that he could be charged with murder and brought before a British court over ``this extraordinarily grave crime.''

London-based Litvinenko, 43, had previously worked in Russia's FSB intelligence agency before becoming an outspoken opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He died in a London hospital on Nov. 23, more than three weeks after being poisoned with the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Today's announcement is likely to raise diplomatic tensions between the U.K. and Russia. At the weekend MacDonald was forced to deny media reports that the U.K. Foreign Office was pressuring his prosecutors to take no action in order to avoid damaging relations between the two countries.

Extradition Dispute

The U.K. Crown Prosecution Service said both countries are parties to the 1957 European Convention on Extradition. On Nov. 15 the CPS and the Russian Prosecutor-General's office signed a memorandum of understanding in which they agreed to ``co-operate in the sphere of extradition.''

The Russian government said today though that it won't extradite Lugovoi. It left open the possibility that he may be tried in his own country.

Under Russia's constitution the authorities can't extradite a Russian citizen to a foreign country, a spokeswoman for the Prosecutor-General's office said by telephone. Under the 1957 convention, though, a suspect in a crime committed abroad can be tried in Russia if there is a corresponding offense under Russian law, the spokeswoman said.

``Unless he leaves the country or the constitution is amended it seems there is little Britain can do to get him,'' Mark Kirsh, a lawyer with Linklaters in Moscow, said by phone.

Russian Ambassador Yuri Fedotov was summoned to the Foreign Office in London today to meet Permanent Under-secretary Peter Ricketts, who explained the British position. U.K. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, visiting Tokyo, said she expected ``full co-operation'' from Russia.

`Murder is Murder'

The U.K. wouldn't ``shy away'' from pursuing the case, Tom Kelly, spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair, said at a briefing for reporters.

``We now have a new development and we need to hear Russia's formal response,'' Kelly said. ``Let us see the legal process and let us see if Russia complies with that process. Murder is murder, and that is very serious.''

The U.K. Attorney General Peter Goldsmith said he was consulted over whether Lugovoi should be prosecuted, as is usual in serious and complex cases. In a statement Goldsmith said he agreed with the decision to prosecute.

``I am now very anxious to see that justice is really done and that Lugovoi is extradited and brought to trial in a U.K. court,'' Marina Litvinenko said in an e-mailed statement. ``We don't know why my husband was killed and who ordered it. I believe it was not only one person.''

Boris Berezovsky

Lugovoi met Litvinenko in London's Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1, the day he fell ill. Lugovoi has repeatedly denied any involvement in the killing in a series of interviews in Russia.

``We have not officially been notified of the charges,'' Lugovoi's lawyer Andrei Romashov said by telephone from Moscow today. ``You have to inform someone of charges, these charges have been released into the air.''

On his deathbed Litvinenko accused Putin of being involved in his murder, an accusation the Kremlin called ``absurd.''

Litvinenko had been granted political asylum in the U.K. and was a friend of the exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.

Russia-U.K. ties have been strained previously by Britain's refusal to extradite Berezovsky, a Kremlin power-broker under President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s who became a critic of Putin. Berezovsky fled Russia in 2001 to avoid charges, including fraud, which he said were politically motivated, and was given political asylum in the U.K. in 2003.

`Double Standards'

Russia demanded Berezovsky, who is worth $1.1 billion according to Forbes magazine, be stripped of his asylum status after he made anti-Putin comments in a British newspaper interview on April 13. Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov, in an April 16 interview, accused the U.K. of applying ``double standards'' in the Berezovsky and Litvinenko cases.

The Russian authorities have said they want to interview about 100 people in London as part of their own investigation into the Litvinenko killing and a group of Russian prosecutors, led by Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev, traveled to London on March 26.