Andrei Lugovoi: I will never stand trial in Britain for Litvinenko poisoning
Luke Harding in Moscow
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 October 2010 17.25 BST
He is the man behind the most serious diplomatic fallout between Britain and Russia since the cold war. If Scotland Yard is to believed, he is also the person who put a fatal dose of radioactive polonium into Alexander Litvinenko's tea, in one of the most notorious assassinations of the modern age.
Today Andrei Lugovoi said it was time for Britain to "move on" from Litvinenko's agonising death four years ago, and to drop attempts to extradite him to the UK. Speaking before William Hague's arrival , on a first visit to Moscow as foreign secretary, todayLugovoi said he would never travel to Britain to stand trial. "The British press has trampled on my reputation. My family and I have suffered great unpleasantness. I'm not going to compromise [by going to Britain]. The only trial I'll accept is one in Russia."
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Lugovoi has admitted he met Litvinenko in London on 1 November 2006, the day the latter was poisoned. The meeting took place at the Millennium hotel, in Grosvenor Square, London, he said, and included another Russian business associate, Dmitry Kovtun. Lugovoi said he could not remember whether Litvinenko drank tea. "Generally he preferred Pepsi or cola." But he scoffed at the idea that he had poured or dissolved radioactive polonium-210 into Litvinenko's drink.
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Speaking at a rustic-themed restaurant in Moscow owned by his 24-year-old daughter, Tatiana, he jokingly referred to Anna Chapman, the Russian at the centre of this summer's unprecedented spy swap between the US and Russia. "I would like to meet her. I think I will meet her," he said. "If any British film company invites me to play the role of James Bond, I'll ask her to be my Bond girl. My only demand is that I get an Aston Martin car as an honorarium."
After the scandal surrounding Litvinenko's death, Lugovoi, a former KGB officer turned businessman, was elected to Russia's parliament – a sign of strong support from Putin, then Russia's president, and a position that gave him immunity from prosecution.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oc ... -poisoning
