MOSCOW (AFP) — Russian investigators said on Tuesday there was no evidence of a secret service role in the London killing of ex-agent Alexander Litvinenko, rejecting a claim made in Britain's media.
Russia's own investigation "has made significant progress and has not produced evidence that any secret service was involved in the crime," said the spokesman for the prosecutor's investigative committee, Vladimir Markin, in a statement seen by AFP.
The statement said progress had been made despite a lack of full assistance from countries Russia had turned to in its investigation, including Britain.
On Monday the BBC quoted a senior British security official as saying there were "very strong indications" that Litvinenko's 2006 murder was linked to the Russian state -- the first time, the BBC said, that a senior official had publicly made such a link.
The comments came after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met Russia's new president, Dmitry Medvedev, at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Japan.
While the two smiled in front of the cameras as they met in Japan, Britain's Foreign Office had pledged to Litvinenko's widow Marina that Brown would raise the subject of her husband's death with Medvedev.
Anglo-Russian relations soured dramatically after Litvinenko, a former KGB agent turned dissident, died in a London hospital in November 2006 due to extreme radiation poisoning.
Russia refuses to extradite the only suspect in the case, former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi, pointing out that the Russian constitution forbids extradition of Russian citizens.
Britain has suspended cooperation with Russia's FSB secret service, successor to the KGB, in the wake of the affair.
A spokesman for Medvedev said the Russian president had suggested trying to normalise relations when he met Brown.
The unnamed senior British security official quoted by the BBC said that "we very strongly believe the Litvinenko case to have had some state involvement."
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