Russian prosecution: Litvinenko was poisoned long before meeting Lugovoy

Read it in Russian

On July 23, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev announced that evidence given by the British prosecution to prove involvement of Andrei Lugovoy in murder of Alexander Litvinenko are beneath all criticism. The Russian prosecution not only casts doubt on involvement of Lugovoy, but considers the assumption that Mr. Litvinenko had been poisoned long before meeting his alleged murder.

According to Zvyagintsev, materials sent by the British prosecution have no grounds for charging Lugovoy with Litvinenko’s murder. “The documents contain no expertise or conclusions; they are not enough to institute criminal proceedings against Lugovoy in Russia,” the deputy prosecutor general said. According to the British investigation, Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium 210, when he drank tea offered to him by Lugovoy at the lobby of the Millennium Hotel on November 1, 2006. “Lugovoy and Kovtun were also victims of the poisoning, polonium was found in their organisms. All those points show the vulnerability of the assumption that Lugovoy was the source of Litvinenko’s poisoning.”

As REGNUM reported earlier, last week London announced it would expel four Russian diplomats, put limits on issuing visas to Russian officials and suspend talks on easing the visa regime because of Russia’s refusal to extradite Lugovoy to Britain. The Russian constitution prohibits extradition of Russian citizens to other countries. Moscow announced reciprocal measures: extradition of four British diplomats and suspension of the cooperation with the United Kingdom to combat terrorism.