Britain's expulsion of four Russian diplomats because Moscow refused to extradite a man suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko is politically motivated, a senior Russian prosecutor said today.
Russia's deputy Prosecutor-General, Alexander Zvyagintsev, said Britain's reaction was "plainly groundless, inappropriate, unjustified and lies exclusively in a political framework."
"We refused extradition on the basis of the law," he said.
Britain has accused ex-KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy of killing Mr Litvinenko last year in London with radiation poisoning, but Moscow has refused to send him to London, saying it would break its constitution.
Mr Zyagintsev's comments follow a story in the London-based Sunday Timesnewspaper that reported that top British government officials believed Mr Litvinenko's murder was "state-sponsored terrorism".
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Britain's ambassador to Moscow have both tried to play down the rhetoric.
