Undesired Walrus
8th July 2008, 05:19 AM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7494865.stm
Accusations by senior British security sources that the Russian state backed the murder of Alexander Litvinenko shows that this issue continues to bedevil Russian-British relations.
The sources told the BBC's Newsnight programme that "there are strong indications that it was state action... and not a rogue element".
The use of lethal polonium "is evidence of state involvement", the sources said. After all, it is not a substance you can pick up at a department store.
The accusation is not fundamentally new. Nobody involved in the request to Russia for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi has any doubts that only a state organisation could have ordered such an operation and provided the special radioactive means to carry it out.
The only issue was how far it had Kremlin approval.
The conclusion to be drawn from these latest comments is that Britain believes that the Russian security service the FSB was operating largely independently, but in a permissive environment in which the Kremlin signalled that action against critics was allowed.
The Russian parliament even passed a law making it legal to carry out assassinations abroad....
.....Britain could further escalate the dispute by revealing the evidence it has against Mr Lugovoi. This would help back up its accusations by providing the world with the background, including the radioactive trail through London.
It could alternatively, under the convention, ask the Russians to take on the prosecution themselves. However the British fear is that this would lead to an acquittal, in which case Mr Lugovoi might be free to travel without fear of arrest, as he cannot at the moment.
It is quite strange Bush can look in Putin's soul and find him 'straight forward and trustworthy' when he potentially has been ordering the deaths of the citizens of America's closest ally.
Accusations by senior British security sources that the Russian state backed the murder of Alexander Litvinenko shows that this issue continues to bedevil Russian-British relations.
The sources told the BBC's Newsnight programme that "there are strong indications that it was state action... and not a rogue element".
The use of lethal polonium "is evidence of state involvement", the sources said. After all, it is not a substance you can pick up at a department store.
The accusation is not fundamentally new. Nobody involved in the request to Russia for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi has any doubts that only a state organisation could have ordered such an operation and provided the special radioactive means to carry it out.
The only issue was how far it had Kremlin approval.
The conclusion to be drawn from these latest comments is that Britain believes that the Russian security service the FSB was operating largely independently, but in a permissive environment in which the Kremlin signalled that action against critics was allowed.
The Russian parliament even passed a law making it legal to carry out assassinations abroad....
.....Britain could further escalate the dispute by revealing the evidence it has against Mr Lugovoi. This would help back up its accusations by providing the world with the background, including the radioactive trail through London.
It could alternatively, under the convention, ask the Russians to take on the prosecution themselves. However the British fear is that this would lead to an acquittal, in which case Mr Lugovoi might be free to travel without fear of arrest, as he cannot at the moment.
It is quite strange Bush can look in Putin's soul and find him 'straight forward and trustworthy' when he potentially has been ordering the deaths of the citizens of America's closest ally.