Russia does not want to politicize the situation with the case of Andrei Lugovoy, the main suspect in the murder of former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Alexander Litvinenko, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
"I have read and noted with surprise that the British Foreign Office is handling the Lugovoy case," Lavrov was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.
"Moscow has not officially received an official confirmation of that fact," he added.
"This case is a criminal one and must be considered by concerned agencies," Lavrov said. "If the fact that the British Foreign Office is handling it is confirmed, it will mean that it is a political game," the minister emphasized.
On May 28, the British authorities sent to the Russian General Prosecutor's Office a request to extradite Lugovoy.
Russia rejected Britain's request again for extradition of Andrei Lugovoy on Wednesday.
Litvinenko died of radioactive poisoning, the Polonium 210, in London on Nov. 23. Experts investigating his death have found radiation traces at a dozen locations and on two British Airways planes that flew the Moscow-London route.
Lugovoy, also a former Soviet KGB agent, was a business partner of Litvinenko and had met the latter in a London hotel on Nov. 1. Litvinenko fell ill on that day and died weeks later in a London hospital.
Litvinenko, who was a strong critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, accused the Kremlin of orchestrating his poisoning just before his death. Moscow vehemently denies the charge.
The former agent, who had been arrested several times, fled to Britain with his wife and son in November 2000 and was granted asylum. He became a British citizen several weeks before his death.
Source: Xinhua
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