MOSCOW. Aug 8 (Interfax) - The United Kingdom and a number of other European Union countries have turned into asylum for Russians suspected of having committed crimes and are refusing to cooperate with Moscow to ensure their criminal prosecution for political reasons, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev said.
"Britain still serves as a shelter for a large number of people who have committed serious crimes often involving legalization of stolen capitals," Zvyagintsev told Interfax.
"Unfortunately, some countries groundlessly politicize particular criminal cases as regards extradition and the granting of legal assistance requests, and this is a serious problem," he said.
"For instance, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and some other countries have been unwilling to grant a lot of Russian investigation requests for a long time," he said.
"In some cases, the Cypriot and French judicial authorities have made unwarranted decisions declining extradition requests as well, although our relations with these countries are quite positive in general when it comes to extradition and the granting of requests," Zvyagintsev said.
"The Russian criminal circles view some European Union countries as places where they can escape justice due to very liberal extradition and asylum practices existing there," he said.
"We have repeatedly called our foreign counterparts' attention to the fact that, along with dirty money, the criminal immigrants also bring their criminal experiences and business methods to the countries of their new residence, including elements of corruption and violent crimes. The record of some European countries proves this," he said.