UK detectives seek visit to Russia over poisoning

By Staff
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MOSCOW, Jan 16 (Reuters) British investigators want to return to Moscow as part of their probe into the death of former security agent Alexander Litvinenko, Russia's Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika said today.

Litvinenko died on Nov. 23 in London after being poisoned with polonium 210, a highly radioactive substance. In a deathbed statement, he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder -- an allegation dismissed by the Kremlin.

Last month, British detectives flew to Moscow to question Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, witnesses who met Litvinenko around the time he fell ill.

''Yesterday we received a new request from Britain to let a team of British detectives visit Moscow again as part of the 'Litvinenko case','' Chaika told reporters.

He did not say what the British detectives hoped to achieve during their second visit. They spent two weeks in Russia in December and left without revealing what they had discovered.

Russia is running its own investigation and has asked Britain to let its detectives travel to London.

''I do not exclude that after our investigators visit London we will host our colleagues again here,'' he added. Chaika gave no further details.

Litvinenko's death came soon after the murder in Moscow of another of Putin's critics, prominent journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

That added to suspicions in the West that the killings could have been state-sponsored acts of revenge.

The Kremlin says it had no reason to kill either because their deaths harmed its reputation more than their criticism.

Top Russian officials have hinted that Putin's foes abroad, such as tycoon Boris Berezovsky who lives in self-exile in London, could be behind Litvinenko's death.

''We have our own versions of the murder and do not rule out that it was carried out by Russians living abroad,'' Chaika said without elaborating further.

But he reiterated that Russian investigators wanted to question Berezovsky, who denies any link to the death of his associate Litvinenko.

Chaika also said Russian prosecutors have stepped up efforts to get hold of Leonid Nevzlin, a former top manager of the YUKOS business empire, whom they also suspect of poisoning Litvinenko.

Nevzlin, who lives in Israel, denies the charges.

''We want to question Nevzlin,'' Chaika said. ''We believe he was illegally granted Israeli citizenship and we are working with the Israeli courts to strip Nevzlin of it.'' Oil major YUKOS has been dismembered and is now bankrupt after facing 33 billion dollar of back tax claims in a Kremlin-orchestrated legal attack against its politically ambitious owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky is now serving an eight-year prison term in a Siberian jail.

REUTERS SP RN1705

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