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RUSSIA: POISONING SUSPECT HOSPITALIZED December 6, 2006
Zainab Osman
(SomaliNet) Russia's chief prosecutor said Tuesday that a potential suspect in the London poisoning death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko had been hospitalized and that British investigators would be allowed to see him only if doctors approved.
Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika also said that Russia's constitution forbade the extradition of citizens and that if any Russians were identified as suspects in the case they would not be sent to Britain and could be tried only in Russia.
Former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy, who met with Litvinenko in London on the day he was thought to have been radioactively poisoned, had expressed willingness to speak to investigators. But on Tuesday a man answering Lugovoy's cell phone said that it was not clear "whether and when he will be able to talk" to investigators or how long he would remain in the hospital.
In a statement written shortly before his death on Nov. 23, Litvinenko blamed Russian President Vladimir V. Putin for his poisoning, a charge the Kremlin angrily dismissed. Litvinenko also told friends that he thought Lugovoy might have been the person who poisoned him.