MOSCOW, September 12 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would not extradite its citizen (Andrei Lugovoi) to London in connection with the “Litvinenko case”.
“This will never happen,” said the head of state, recalling at the joint conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron in the Kremlin the appropriate article of the Russian Constitution that prohibits extraditing Russian citizens to other countries to be prosecuted.
Medvedev noted, at the same time, that the “Litvinenko case” must not interfere with the development of positive relations between Moscow and London.
“The question of the ‘Litvinenko case’ should be viewed through the prism of law; any other attitude is harmful,” Medvedev noted.
“We have different legal systems; there is a need to look for solutions, but as long as they have not yet been found, is should be acknowledged that we look at the ‘Litvinenko case’ differently,” the Russian president said. This difference in the views, however, does not prevent Moscow and London from cooperating in solution of problems of international politics and development of bilateral economic relations.
Medvedev described economic relations between Russia and Great Britain as “very good and almost excellent”. The structure of British investments into the Russian economy, however, is “far from optimal”, as it is oriented mainly at trade in hydrocarbons, he noted.
“Political contacts never broke off, but they were complicated by difficult questions,” Medvedev pointed out. “We began discussing with David [Cameron] these complicated matters, and, I believe, we managed largely to cope with the existing complexities”. As to “difficult questions”, “we take a clear position, stating outright what is possible and what is impossible from the legal viewpoint,” the Russian president said.