Russia has asked Britain to extradite a Russian oil boss wanted on tax evasion charges, prosecutors said in Moscow on Monday, creating the potential for a fresh diplomatic spat with London.
Russia has already attacked Britain for hosting Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky, wanted in Russia on embezzlement charges. Russia's refusal to extradite a suspect in the murder of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London sparked a round of diplomatic expulsions last year.
Russian prosecutors say Mikhail Gutseriyev, former boss of the mid-sized oil company Russneft, is in Britain and should be handed over to stand trial. The businessman alleges the charges were fabricated to force him out of his company.
A spokeswoman for the Russian Prosecutor-General's office said it had been waiting for two months for Britain to respond to its request for Gutseriyev's extradition. "The Prosecutor-General's Office on July 29 sent the British Interior Ministry an official request for the extradition of M. Gutseriyev to face criminal prosecution," Interfax news agency quoted spokeswoman Marina Gridneva as saying.
"As of this moment, the British side has not taken a decision on this issue." Asked to comment, a spokesman for the British embassy in Moscow said: "I can neither confirm nor deny that the extradition request has been received."
Britain has become a magnet for wealthy Russians seeking a relatively safe place to invest their assets, but its role as a haven for Russians who have fallen foul of the Kremlin has complicated British-Russian relations. Russian prosecutors have demanded repeatedly that British courts extradite Berezovsky, a wealthy former Kremlin insider who now says he is using peaceful means to bring about a change of power in Russia.
Moscow is also angry that Britain has provided asylum to Akhmed Zakayev, a rebel leader from Russia's Chechnya region who has been labelled a terrorist by Russian authorities.
Diplomatic ties between Moscow and London fell to a post-Cold War low after Kremlin critic Litvinenko, close to Berezovsky, died of a massive dose of radioactive poison in 2006. Britain named former national security agent Andrei Lugovoy as its chief suspect in the murder, but Russia refused to hand him over for trial, citing a constitutional ban on the extradition of Russian citizens.
In the row that followed, Britain imposed restrictions on issuing some types of entry visas to Russians, each side expelled four diplomats and Russia closed down the regional offices of the British government's cultural arm.
Gutseriyev accused the Russian government last year of "unprecedented bullying" after his company received back tax demands totalling $800 million. He later retracted the statement. Russian prosecutors said since then they had tracked him down to Britain.
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