I didn't kill spy... your MI6 killed him, claims KGB agent

Andrei Lugovoy said MI6 had caused the exiled Russian spy’s slow and agonising death by radioactive polonium-210 poisoning.

Lugovoy even claimed that London spy chiefs had tried to recruit him as a double agent.

“They thought I was a Russian James Bond who could infiltrate Russian nuclear facilities,” he said.

His claims were dismissed as “silly fantasies” by Oleg Gordievsky, a real double agent now living in Britain.

The latest developments in the Litvinenko mystery came eight days after Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald announced that police had enough evidence to charge Lugovoy with murder.

Litvinenko – a stern critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin – was poisoned when he drank a cup of tea laced with polonium-210 as he met Lugovoy and another Russian at a central London hotel in November.

The Russians have refused to extradite Lugovoy. Their constitution states that no Russian citizen can be sent abroad for trial.

Lugovoy, 40, made his extraordinary allegations at a press conference yesterday.

He also claimed Litvinenko and exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky were working for British Intelligence.

But experts said this was the classic spy tactic of “muddying the waters”. One commented: “The implication that a British government agency was involved, gives the Russians a diplomatic get-out to counter accusations that they are harbouring a killer.”

Lugovoy said Litvinenko could have been poisoned by MI6 officers, Russian mafia or exiled Russians – but MI6 was behind the killing.

However, he refused to reveal his “direct evidence” for his claims, simply stating: “It is hard to escape the thought that Litvinenko had become an agent who had escaped the control of the special services and they took him out.

“Sasha [Litvinenko] was not my enemy. I didn’t feel cold or hot about the books he was writing [attacking Putin]. I had been in business for a long time and wasn’t really interested”

He added: “I was openly recruited by British security agents. They asked me to collect any compromising information about President Putin and his family.

“I am not an ardent admirer of President Putin – I have my own reasons – but I was taught to love my country and not to betray it.”

Lugovoy, who now runs a business training bodyguards, added: “The fact that I rejected the recruitment made Litvinenko mad and crazy. He told me I would be stopped from entering Britain and denied visas.”

Then Lugovoy claimed that Britain accused him of murder to prevent him revealing the attempts to recruit him.

But Mr Gordievsky denied that MI6 would want Litvinenko.

He told the BBC: “He used to be a member of the FSB, it is a domestic organisation of the KGB, and MI6 is not interested in information about the domestic service.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “This is a criminal matter, not an issue about intelligence. A British citizen was killed in London and UK citizens and visitors were put at risk.”