Russia said yesterday it was not willing to hand over to Britain the businessman suspected by Scotland Yard of poisoning the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko.
Russian prosecutors said there was virtually no prospect they would agree to any future British request for Andrei Lugovoi to be extradited to the UK to stand trial.
Senior Whitehall officials have told the Guardian that a Scotland Yard file on Mr Litvinenko's murder, which is about to be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service, alleges there is sufficient evidence against Mr Lugovoi for the CPS to decide whether he should face prosecution.
But yesterday sources in Russia's prosecutor's office said Mr Lugovoi would not leave Moscow. "If a request for Lugovoi's extradition arrives from London, the following answer will most likely be given to it: the constitution of Russia prohibits extradition of its citizens," the official said. He said Mr Lugovoi could be tried in Russia for a crime committed abroad "if there is evidence proving his guilt".
Yesterday Mr Lugovoi shrugged off the accusation against him and repeated his denials that he had nothing to do with Mr Litvinenko's murder. In an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax, he said he had given "exhaustive answers" to Scotland Yard detectives when they visited Moscow last December. "I have not received any official statements. However, if it happens I am ready to protect my reputation in any court," he added.
There were signs yesterday that the affair is damaging relations with Moscow. Government officials are convinced that, in return for an extradition request for Mr Lugovoi, the Kremlin is likely to demand extradition of Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch granted asylum in the UK.
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Andrei Lugovoi (Lugovoy) (Russian: Андрей Луговой) is a former Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) operative and millionaire who met with Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill (1 November).
He had visited London at least three times in the month before Litvinenko's death and met with the victim four times. Traces of polonium-210 have been discovered in all three hotels where Lugovoi stayed after flying to London on October 16, and in the Pescatori restaurant in Dover Street, Mayfair, where Mr Lugovoi is understood to have dined before 1 November; and aboard two aircraft on which he had travelled.
He has declined to say whether he had been contaminated with polonium 210, the substance that led to Litvinenko's death on 23 November 2006.
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