Opinion: Lugovoi will be tried in Russia

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Russian businessman, former security officer Andrei Lugovoi charged by the UK prosecution with murder of Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium will not be extradited from Russia. As a REGNUM correspondent informs, Chair of the Russian State Duma Security Committee Vladimir Vasilyev announced at a news conference today. According to him, during last year only, Russia received about 300 requests for extradition of its citizens to other countries, however, none of them was fulfilled.

The request to extradite Andrei Lugovoi has already been formed by the UK prosecution, but has not been sent to Russia via official diplomatic channels.

As Vladimir Vasilyev said, the Office of the Russian Prosecutor General and the British Crown Prosecution Service cooperate in the Litvinenko murder. It is possible to obtain materials of the investigation within frameworks of the cooperation to try Lugovoi in Russia.

In this connection, he reminded that the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material unambiguously claims that violators of the legislation on treatment nuclear material must be either extradited or tried in their home country.

Vladimir Vasilyev preferred not to comment on a possibility of exchanging Andrei Lugovoi for Boris Berezovsky. “Everything is possible,” he said.