Russian doubts fair trial in UK over Litvinenko

MOSCOW, Feb 23 (Reuters) A former Kremlin bodyguard said today he doubted he could get a fair trial in Britain if he was prosecuted for the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard, told Ekho Moskvy radio station that the British media had whipped up such a hysteria that almost everyone in Britain thought he was involved in Litvinenko's murder.

When asked if he was afraid to travel to Britain, Lugovoy said: ''There is an understanding in the British legal system of a fair trial.'' ''The madness that we have seen in the British media has got to such levels that if a poll was taken in Britain, 99 people out of a hundred would say we were guilty of this murder,'' he said.

''So we need to understand whether it is worth meeting with people who from the start are inclined and prepared to make us scapegoats,'' Lugovoy said.

Litvinenko died in a London hospital on November 23 last year after being poisoned with a lethal dose of polonium 210.

He issued a deathbed statement accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder. The Kremlin has dismissed the allegations as nonsense.

British detectives investigating the murder said last month they had handed a file on the case to prosecutors, who said they would examine it in detail before deciding whether any charges would be brought.

Lugovoy said British newspaper reports that he was a suspect in the case were wrong and misleading.

He said he was a witness who had cooperated in hours of interviews with British and Russian detectives.

''We are in talks with several respected British legal firms,'' Lugovoy told the radio station.

''I don't rule out anything, including a trip to London.'' Lugovoy met Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel in London's Grosvenor Square on Nov. 1 with another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun.

Later that day, Litvinenko complained of feeling ill and was admitted to hospital shortly afterwards.

''Kovtun feels fine though he is undergoing tests. He has changed his image a little,'' Lugovoy said, apparently referring to Kovtun's lack of hair. Some Russian media have reported Kovtun's hair fell out because of radiation poisoning.

Lugovoy, who said he had been skiing with Kovtun in the south of Russia, declined to say whether he or Kovtun had been treated for polonium poisoning.

Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky said this month in a BBC interview that Litvinenko had told him he suspected Lugovoy of being involved in his poisoning.

Lugovoy said he had spoken to Berezovsky, a leading Putin critic who lives in London, for 20 minutes after the interview.

He said he considered Berezovsky had spoken ''not entirely his own point of view.'' Lugovoy used to work as head of security for Berezovsky.

REUTERS SAM RAI2125