Son of the British Council chair arrested in St. Petersburg

Jan 16, 2008, 10:53 GMT

Moscow - In an odd twist to escalating British-Russian tensions over the British Council offices, the cultural organization's director was arrested on charges of drunk driving, news agency Interfax reported Wednesday.

Stephen Kinnock, director of the British Council for north-west Russia and the son of former Labour leader Neil Kinnock who chairs the organization, was arrested late Tuesday night.

He was pulled over while driving in St. Petersburg for driving down a one way side street, a traffic officer told Interfax.

'While checking Mr Kinnock's documents, we noticed a steady smell of alcohol. He refused a physical examination, but a report was made calling upon passersby as witnesses,' the officer said.

Within half an hour, at midnight, the British consul to St. Petersburg William Elliot arrived at the scene.

Head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs Konstantin Kosachyov said the parliament would discuss the diplomatic situation at its regular session on Wednesday.

Russia has announced possible measures against Britain's cultural offices as they reopened after holiday break, defying Russian orders to close.

Kosachyov said Wednesday that 'Russian authorities have all possibilities to insist on stopping the activity of British Council offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.'

'Necessary measures are being taken already,' he added.

Russia cited a 1963 Vienna Convention on consular activities to order the closure in December of the British government's 15 regional offices including those in St Petersburg and Yekaterinenburg, where staff showed up as usual Monday.

Britain has ignored Russian directives, which its ambassador said were counter to international law.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the reopening of the British Council's office Monday a 'deliberate provocation,' and declared it would refuse visas to new council employs and demand back taxes from the organization.

The conflict over the cultural organization is the latest incident in the tensions in bilateral relations since the 2006 poisoning in London of former Russian spy turned dissident Alexander Litvinenko.

Anglo-Russian relations sunk to new Cold War lows after Moscow refused to extradite an ex-KGB bodyguard suspected of murdering Litvinenko, culminating in the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats last year.