Litvinenko Murder Suspect to Run for Mayor of Olympic City

Lugovoy doesn't care if Brits skip 2014 Games
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 23, 2009 8:12 AM CDT
Litvinenko Murder Suspect to Run for Mayor of Olympic City
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ski at a slope outside the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2009. Sochi will host the 2014 Olympics.   (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool)

Russia fought hard to win the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, reports the Los Angeles Times, and now a second battle is heating up: the race for mayor of the Black Sea resort town, which is beginning billions' worth of construction. Among the contenders are a media magnate with a KGB past, a deputy PM who's been blacklisted, and—most surprisingly of all—Andrei Lugovoy, the man internationally wanted for the 2006 polonium murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

Lugovoy, who cannot leave Russia due to a warrant for his arrest, said he was unafraid of an Olympic boycott by the "Anglo-Saxon empire," and illustrated the relationship between the US and Britain with a series of jokes about Jews. Another candidate called him a "murderer" and "a disaster for Russia," but Lugovoy didn't mince words in response. "I want to kick them in the head," he said. "I despise them." (More 2014 Olympics stories.)

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