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Russia is unlikely to extradite Andrei Lugovoi to Britain to face trial for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, in spite of pressure from Downing Street, the foreign workplace and also the Crown Prosecution Service.

A spokeswoman for the Russian prosecutor’s workplace told the Guardian this morning: “We have been instructed not to comment on the Lugovoi case.”

On prior occasions, nonetheless, prosecutors have pointed out that the Russian constitution prohibits the extradition of citizens to stand trial abroad. It leaves open the possibility that Mr Lugovoi might be attempted inside the Russian federation “with the participation with the needed foreign experts”.

There is no bilateral extradition treaty among Russia and also the UK, and legislation passed by Russia to handle one-off requests by European countries guidelines out the extradition of its citizens. When signing as much as the European convention on extradition in 1996, Russia granted itself an exemption in accordance with write-up 61 with the state’s constitution, which says: “A Russian citizen can’t be sent beyond the borders with the Russian Federation or given to yet another state”.

The Moscow lawyer Dimitri Afanasiev told the Guardian last year that, simply because the Russian parliament had ratified the exemption, any extradition would require parliamentary approval. “I do not see any way that it could possibly be overruled apart from by an act of parliament,” he mentioned. The only other way could be for suspects to be attempted in Russia.

Also, within the past Russia has responded to any British extradition requests with repeated demands for the extradition of Russians inside the UK. Moscow has attempted to secure the return of 16 emigres, but has been rebuffed since the Property Workplace says they’re targets of politically driven prosecutions and could not anticipate a fair trial.

This group consists of Boris Berezovsky, the billionaire who when employed Mr Litvinenko, and Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen separatist who lived opposite Mr Litvinenko, too as former executives with the Yukos oil giant. Moscow has repeatedly attempted to extradite Mr Berezovsky – most lately following his interview using the Guardian in April, when he claimed he was plotting a violent revolution against President Vladimir Putin’s regime.