Putin says UK's demand for Lugovoy was political

ROME, June 3 (Reuters) Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published today that Britain's request for the extradition of former agent Andrei Lugovoy was politically motivated and was not backed up by enough evidence.

British prosecutors have said they want to bring Lugovoy before a British court and charge him with murdering Alexander Litvinenko, also a former Russian spy, in London last November.

Putin said the request for Lugovoy's extradition was politically motivated and hit back at Britain for granting political asylum to Chechen rebel leader Akhmed Zakayev and tycoon Boris Berezovsky, both wanted in Russia.

''The suspicion arises that this is a political move made by those who hide terrorists and thieves on their own territory,'' Putin told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The extradition of Russian citizens is banned under the constitution. But even if that were not the case, the evidence provided by the British authorities was too weak, Putin said.

''The prosecutor general tells me that sufficient grounds have not been submitted,'' the newspaper quoted him as saying. He also confirmed there was a separate investigation into Litvinenko's murder in Russia.

''In Russia too there is an investigation into Lugovoy and we would take legal action if we found the evidence,'' said Putin, who is due to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Group of Eight summit in northern Germany this week.

Litvinenko, a former FSB agent who had become a fierce Kremlin critic and moved to Britain, met Lugovoy and Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun in London's Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1 last year.

He fell ill within hours of the meeting and suffered an agonising death in hospital just over three weeks later. Doctors diagnosed polonium poisoning.

In a letter which friends said was dictated on his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Putin of responsibility for his murder. The Kremlin dismissed such talk as ridiculous.

REUTERS LPB VC1800