UK slams Russian decision on spy murder suspect

LONDON, July 10 (Reuters) Britain said today that Russia's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoy, the main suspect in the murder of Russian emigre Alexander Litvinenko, was ''unacceptable''.

''We've consistently said that the murder of Mr Litvinenko is a serious criminal matter,'' a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said. ''The Russian reply is unacceptable. We will consider our response with the deliberation and seriousness that it deserves.'' British prosecutors confirmed Moscow had sent a formal refusal to extradite Lugovoy, a former state security agent, to face trial for the murder of Litvinenko, who was poisoned in London last year.

Crown Prosecution Service said the allegations against Lugovoy were that ''he committed this extraordinarily grave crime here in our capital city''.

Litvinenko, a former officer in Russia's Federal Security Service, fled to Britain and became a critic of President Vladimir Putin. He died in a London hospital last November after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210.

Police found a trail of radiation matching Lugovoy's movements.

But Lugovoy has denied any guilt, saying he believed Litvinenko had been killed by British intelligence.

The CPS said Russian authorities had said they were prepared to put Lugovoy on trial in Russia if the evidence was forwarded to them, but this was not satisfactory for Britain.

''The allegation against Mr Lugovoy is that he murdered a British citizen by deliberate poisoning,'' director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald said in a statement. ''The appropriate venue for his trial is therefore London.'' The foreign office spokesman also noted that ''hundreds of British citizens and visitors to the capital were put at risk'' by the alleged poisoning.

Litvinenko's murder has soured already difficult relations between London and Moscow.

In a statement read out by associates after his death, Litvinenko accused Putin of having a hand in his murder. The Kremlin dismissed the charge as nonsense and accused Britain of harbouring emigres bent on blackening Russia's name.

REUTERS AM ND1646