MOSCOW, May 28 (UPI) -- Russian officials said Monday they had received the British request to extradite a Moscow businessman charged in London with murdering a former KGB agent.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the documents "have been received and passed on" to the general prosecutor's office, RIA Novosti reported.
Russian prosecutors have said Russia's constitution prevents the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi to face charges that he killed Alexander Litvinenko but that he could be tried in Russia if the evidence warranted it.
"If our experts find British suspicions with regard to Lugovoi credible, he will be tried in a Russian court of law," Yury Chaika said last week, RIA Novosti reported. "But I repeat, we will not extradite a Russian national."
Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin who had moved to London, was poisoned there with radioactive material last November.
Lugovoi has denied any involvement in Litvinenko's murder and said the charges were political, RIA Novosti reported.
