Stanislav Lekarev, former counter-intelligence service officer, discussed his ideas about developments in the Litvinenko case, with Russia Today.
Russia Today: As a former counter-intelligence officer, what do you make of Andrey Lugovoy's press conference yesterday when he came out with many, the three different, possible scenarios of what could had happened? What are your thoughts about it?Stanislav Lekarev: I consider that they had waved on to the reanimation of the Litvinenko case after the meeting of George Bush and Tony Blair. If you remember, before that meeting Condoleezza Rice visited Moscow trying to find out who would be ruling Russia after Vladimir Putin. She imposed certain conditions, in a rather coarse manner. A cool-off in the relationship is already visible. For this they are using operative situations as political levers, so to say, to put pressure on the opponents. So they show off the Litvinenko case again, this time together with Mr Lugovoy, whom the British Royal Prosecution Office want extradited to the UK on the basis of the allegation of murdering Aleksandr Litvinenko. Scotland Yard has all access up the sleeve. They found out that Mr lugovoy did visit the UK on October 12, 2006, using forged documents. What does that mean? Everybody knows he arrived to London on October 16? If they have evidence of that kind than it means that Lugovoy went there under an assumed name and therefore he is an intelligence officer. One can go to London with documents of that kind in case of a serious intelligence service operation only. So they put forward this fact. What they can prove with this evidence? It means that they have a copy of foreign passport of Mr Lugovoy with an assumed name in it. And that his photo was put through a special programme of personality identification using videos of surveillance cameras from not just the airport but the centre of London as well, after Litvinenko