Russia seeks interviews in UK over death of spy

Russia: Russian prosecutors hope to win approval this week from British authorities so they can interview witnesses there about…

Russia:Russian prosecutors hope to win approval this week from British authorities so they can interview witnesses there about the death in London of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

An exiled Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky, is amongst the 100 emigres in the UK whom the Russian prosecutor general has stated he wishes to interview.

Playing down reports in the British media, the office of the prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, yesterday stated they have yet to secure authorisation. But Russian officials hope this will be granted in the next few days by the British Home Office.

While Scotland Yard detectives concentrated their inquiries before Christmas in Moscow into the role of two Moscow-based businessmen, Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun, who met Litvinenko on the day he fell ill from Polonium poisoning, their Russian counterparts have focused on the emigre community in London.

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The Kremlin claims that they may have killed Litvinenko and then used it as a weapon to discredit the president Vladimir Putin internationally.

Russia has already warned that under its constitution, it will not extradite any suspects to stand trial in the UK, but it hopes to pursue a case in Russia instead and has opened a parallel murder inquiry.

Mr Berezovsky, who has successfully fought attempts by the Kremlin to have him extradited on charges of political corruption and fraud, has stated he will meet Russian officials to discuss Litvinenko, who had lived in a house owned by the oligarch after he fled Russia.

Mr Litvinenko received asylum in the UK after claiming he had been ordered to kill Mr Berezovsky, an enemy of Mr Putin. Although Mr Litvinenko accused Mr Putin of ordering his murder in a death bed statement, this has been thoroughly rejected by the Kremlin.

Last week, the Russian president dismissed the role of Mr Litvinenko, claiming he was a convicted thief who had never been in privy to KGB secrets. "He was involved in criminal proceedings in the Russian Federation for abusing his position of service, namely for beating citizens during arrests," he said.