MOSCOW, June 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Federal Security Service has opened a criminal case on espionage charges following checks into businessman Andrei Lugovoi's statements against a former FSB officer and a fugitive oligarch, the service said Friday.
Lugovoi, accused in the United Kingdom of murdering Alexander Litvinenko, told reporters in late May that the ex-FSB officer and his former employer, Boris Berezovsky, had been recruited by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6.
"On June 14, 2007, the FSB, after coordinating the decision with the Prosecutor General's Office, opened a criminal case on espionage charges based on Russian businessman Lugovoi's statements," the service said without naming any suspects.
The United Kingdom applied for Lugovoi's extradition in May to face charges for Litvinenko's murder, but Russian prosecutors have refused to extradite him, saying the handing over of Russian nationals is against the country's Constitution.
Litvinenko received British citizenship shortly before his death from radioactive poisoning in November 2006. In a deathbed note reportedly dictated to a friend, Litvinenko accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating his poisoning, an allegation the Kremlin dismissed as ridiculous.
Lugovoi, who met with Litvinenko not long before his death, said at a news conference on May 31 that British intelligence may have been involved in the murder and had been looking for information to discredit Putin.
Following the FSB announcement Friday, Lugovoi said he would actively cooperate with investigators on the espionage probe.
"As a law-abiding citizen, I am closely cooperating with the Russian investigators, including on issues related to ensuring Russia's national security," he told reporters in Moscow, while refusing to comment on the new espionage case.
Moscow has also been fruitlessly seeking the extradition of Litvinenko's boss Boris Berezovsky, a fugitive tycoon, on fraud charges and for trying to instigate a coup from Britain, where he has been based since 2001 and where he gained citizenship in 2003.
