Russian accused in Litvinenko murder

last updated 8 January 2015

London

British prosecutors said this week that they have enough evidence to charge former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy in the radiation poisoning of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. Russian officials said they would “study” the indictment, but Russian law does not provide for extradition. Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, met with Lugovoy the day he got sick in London last fall, and he died three weeks later. Lugovoy, who left a trail of polonium radiation on his way back to Russia, denies killing Litvinenko. Almost all of the world’s polonium is contained in a Russian government lab. “Every reasonable person knows this was a state–sponsored job,” said Alex Goldfarb, a member of the entourage of exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, as was Litvinenko.