Lugovoi claim disputed

MOSCOW – A Russian historian said Thursday that he told British police he bumped into the chief suspect in the murder of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London earlier than the suspect admits being in the city, but police initially doubted his story.

Yuri Felshtinsky told the Associated Press that he met the suspect, Andrei Lugovoi, together with another figure in the case, Dmitry Kovtun, near Picadilly Circus on Oct. 12.

He said he later notified Scotland Yard about the encounter. But detectives, Felshtinsky said, were initially skeptical, saying they had no record that Lugovoi and Kovtun were in Britain on that date.

“When Scotland Yard was questioning me, they told me I was mistaken,” Felshtinsky said in a telephone interview from the United States. He said investigators thought Lugovoi and Kovtun had not arrived in the country until Oct. 16.

Only after Felshtinsky produced an ATM receipt from Lugovoi from the neighborhood dated Oct. 12 did detectives change their minds, he said.

British prosecutors announced Tuesday that they had sufficient evidence to charge Lugovoi with the murder of Litvinenko, a former Russian security agent who died Nov. 23 after being poisoned by the radioactive substance polonium-210.

Lugovoi called the decision to charge him politically motivated, and Russian prosecutors said they would not extradite him.