It is minus 15C (5F) on a sunlit Siberian morning and Andrei Lugovoy is meeting voters as he tries to transform his image from that of international fugitive to member of Russia’s parliament, from lawbreaker to lawmaker.

To the Crown Prosecution Service, Interpol and exiles from Russia in London he may be an alleged murderer, but here in Barnaul, a city of half a million people 2,500 miles (4,000km) east of Moscow, the former KGB officer is more celebrity than suspect. As The Times joined Mr Lugovoy on his final campaign stop before parliamentary elections on Sunday, it was apparent that arguments over whether he killed Alexander Litvinenko, the dissident spy, cut little ice here.

Instead, voters quizzed him on pensions, army reform, support for farmers and the rising cost of living. Everything, in fact, apart from the subject that has brought him global notoriety and turned polonium210 from an obscure, radioactive substance into a household name.

Mr Lugovoy, 41, has learnt fast for a man with no previous election experience. He has evolved into a polished political performer since declaring in September that he would run for a seat in the Duma with the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).

“I may look comfortable but inside I can’t say it’s true. I’m fine when it’s the press because I can answer any question from them, but voters’ questions are important to them personally and they want a personal answer,” he said.

The promise of the presence of Mr Lugovoy drew about 150 people to a rundown meeting hall to see him. Dressed modestly in a suit and tie, the millionaire businessman was calm, fluent and persuasive, his answers to questions interrupted several times by applause.

Nobody was interested in the fate of Mr Litvinenko in London, so Mr Lugovoy was reduced to raising it himself. Seizing on a question about Western financing of opposition to President Putin, he cast himself as a victim of a vast conspiracy by the British Establishment to bring down Russia.

It is a theme that wins approval from supporters of the LDPR, whose leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, denounces Britain as the eternal enemy of Russia regularly. Sergei Gorbunov, who asked the question, said: “I think this is all a kind of farce on the English side, I don’t think he was involved. I came because I read about Mr Lugovoy on the internet. He seems a very interesting and open person.”

Mr Lugovoy was surrounded by autograph hunters after the meeting, then posed cheerfully for photographs with eager supporters. “He’s a nice guy,” Natalia Dolgikh, 19, said after collecting his signature. “This whole Litvinenko business doesn’t interest anyone here.”

To his obvious pleasure, it was a different story earlier when Mr Lugovoy met two dozen local journalists. They peppered him with questions about the Litvinenko affair, allowing him to expand on his theme that it is all a plot against Russia by the British Secret Service and Boris Berezovsky, the antiPutin billionaire in London.

“It is like this wherever I go,” he told The Timeslater. “And I’m happy about that, because it means that what the press are interested in is not what the people are interested in.”

Mr Lugovoy has travelled to 20 cities, mostly in eastern Russia, during his campaign. Barring Kremlin manipulation or a late collapse in support for the LDPR, he will be rewarded with a seat in the Duma. He is second on the LDPR’s list in an election that allocates seats according to the percentage of the vote achieved by each party above 7 per cent.

The party is expected to gain at least the 7 per cent threshold, and Russia’s parliament will then contain a man that Britain wants to put on trial for murder. Mr Putin has ruled out extradition, pointing to a constitutional ban, and any slim hope of a prosecution in Russia is likely to evaporate once Mr Lugovoy has parliamentary immunity.

Mr Lugovoy is evasive when asked whether he expects to go abroad in his new career, aware that he faces certain arrest if he travels outside of Russia. But he hopes clearly that it will distance him from the Litvinenko case at home. “My name is linked with this now and I don’t hide that. But if I work hard in the Duma, I think people will connect it more in future with the party,” he said.

Party lines

United Russia - polling 60.1%

Slogan: For Putin! For United Russia!

Communist Party - polling 7.4%

Slogan: There is such a party!

LDPR - polling 7%

Slogan: Don’t lie and don’t be afraid!

Source: agencies

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