Britain has no proof of my guilt in Litvinenko murder case : Lugov

Moscow, Aug 29 (UNI) Andrei Lugovoi, a Russian businessman and key suspect in the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko murder case, today said the British Crown Prosecution Service had no evidence to prove his guilt in the murder that took place last November in London.

'' There is no evidence, there is no proof. Everything that the Crown Prosecution Service says is a lie, inspired by the British top leadership together with the special services,''Lugovoi said at a press conference.

He said he had not traveled to Britain for questioning because British authorities never invited him.

'' I am not going and will not go to Britain, because nobody invited me there," he said.

Lugovoi, a former Kremlin bodyguard, said last year on November 20, just three days before the death of Litvinenko, he and his business partner Dmitry Kovtun visited the British Embassy in Moscow, where they had left their full contact details.

'' Acting sensibly, I, together with Kovtun, wrote a statement and left all contacts, telephone numbers and addresses,'' Lugovoi said, adding that he also offered to meet with Scotland Yard experts, but they never contacted him.

Last July, Moscow refused to extradite Lugovoi to Britain, a move that sparked a diplomatic row with London, involving tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats and visa restrictions.

Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin died of polonium-210 poisoning allegedly slipped into his tea at a luxury London hotel. Lugovoi reportedly met with him at the hotel on the day of his poisoning.

Lugovoi's business partner Dmitry Kovtun was also reported to have met Litvinenko hours before he fell ill on November 1.

In December, German police announced that they had found radioactive traces in his car and apartment in Hamburg.

The head of the investigating committee of the Russian General Prosecutor's Office Alexander Bastrykin said yesterday Moscow had not yet received any evidence from Britain on Lugovoi.

'' We have not received any evidence from London of Lugovoi's guilt, and those documents we have are full of blank spaces and contradictions," Bastrykin said.

'' A spate of investigative actions has been performed, but the truth about who committed the murder has not been found," he said referring to the investigation by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office into Litvinenko's murder .

UNI