IS RUSSIAS CONSTITUTIONAL BAN ON EXTRADITIONS FLEXIBLE?
In London on July 19, Russian Ambassador to Britain Yury Fedotov stressed that Moscow had no role in the “heinous” poisoning death of Litvinenko, the BBC reported. Fedotov called on the British authorities to respect Russia’s “laws and constitutional arrangements,” which prohibit the extradition of Russian citizens, and drop calls for the extradition of Lugovoi. In Moscow on July 17, however, Svetlana Gannushkina, chairwoman of Russia’s Civic Assistance human rights group, told RFE/RL’s Russian Service that the authorities have in fact extradited Russian citizens when it suited the Kremlin’s political purposes. She said that “our citizens have already been extradited on several occasions, although quite often Russia, perhaps to justify its actions, revoked their Russian citizenship post factum or expressed doubts that they even had [Russian citizenship]. As far as I know, the first time it happened was in 2002, when Murat Garabaev was extradited [to Turkmenistan].” She noted that “in 2
