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Berezovsky Assassination Attempt

Started by Santa's Boyfriend, July 18, 2007, 12:49:23 PM

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Santa's Boyfriend

The Guardian is reporting today (and possibly others, haven't bothered to check) that an assassin had come to shoot Boris Berezovsky a couple of weeks ago.  Scotland Yard is refusing to talk about it right now, but it all seems plausable enough, and would also make the expulsion of Russian agents more timely if true.  The thing is, if Scotland Yard does go public and acknowledges that this happened then it's going to make it quite difficult for the Kremlin to keep denying this has anything to do with them.

Putin really isn't someone I'd want to get on the wrong side of.  I just wonder what's going to happen next.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2129021,00.html

QuoteThe exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky today claimed that British police had foiled a plot to kill him.

Mr Berezovsky, 61, said that within the last month Scotland Yard had warned him a Russian hitman planned to shoot him at the Hilton hotel on London's Park Lane.

Today a spokeswoman for the London-based billionaire, who fell out with the Kremlin and fled to Britain in 2000, said the planned assassination was "true" but added that the tycoon did not "want to go into details".

"Three weeks ago he was informed by Scotland Yard of a plot to kill him," she said. "They advised him to leave the country, and after a week he was told it was OK to return."

The Sun newspaper, quoting MI5 and MI6 sources, reported that the assassin was accompanied to the hotel by a child in an attempt to avoid raising suspicion. The paper said the security services had intercepted intelligence about the plot - due to have been carried out within the past fortnight - and seized the hitman before he could act.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard would not comment on whether anyone had been arrested. He said: "We are not prepared to discuss it."

A Home Office spokeswoman said she could not comment on matters relating to security.

But a Whitehall source said: "Boris Berezovsky is a high-profile critic of the Russian government. Our experience is that the Russians are prepared to take action against their critics."

The reports come in a turbulent period for UK-Russia relations. The Russian deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushkov, yesterday promised a "targeted and appropriate" response to Britain's expulsion of four Russian diplomats on Monday.

The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, announced the expulsions after the Kremlin officially refused to extradite the former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi - the prime suspect in the murder last November of the dissident former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko.

The Russian ambassador to London, Yuri Fedotov, said he expected Moscow's formal response to the expulsions to come soon. "I don't think we have long to wait. It may take place any day. Today, tomorrow ... I don't think it will take long," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Mr Fedotov said he was not surprised that Mr Berezovsky should be targeted but ruled out Kremlin involvement.

He said of the plot: "I have nothing that could confirm it but on the other side it does not surprise me because Mr Berezovsky takes each and every opportunity - and if there is no opportunity, takes invented opportunity - to expose himself, to make a public figure."

On whether the Russian government could be involved, he said: "It is excluded."

Mr Berezovsky, who was a friend of Litvinenko, dismissed a suggestion that he could be "paranoid".

"I feel, nevertheless, safe, because Scotland Yard is very professional," he told the BBC.

Even before he heard from Scotland Yard about the plot, he had information from a source in Russia of a plan to kill him, the tycoon said.

"It was that someone who I know will come to London to meet me, he will kill me openly, without any hiding, and he will explain later that it's just business reasons," he said.

The oligarch yesterday repeated his accusation that Mr Putin had ordered Litvinenko's murder. He told BBC2's Newsnight: "I'm 100% sure that behind this murder is not just Andrei Lugovoi but Putin himself. That's the reason Russia protects Lugovoi, because they are protecting Putin."

Mr Putin is personally incensed by the UK's failure to extradite Mr Berezovsky to Moscow, where he has been charged with money laundering and attempting to foment a coup against the Kremlin.

A trial in absentia against Mr Berezovsky opened last week in Moscow. The billionaire, who fell out with the Kremlin and fled to Britain in 2000, is accused of embezzling millions of dollars from the state-controlled airline Aeroflot.

Mr Berezovsky is also charged in Russia with conspiring to seize power. The charge is based on an April interview he gave to the Guardian in which he called for a violent revolution in the country.

In a separate development, a court in Brazil last week issued an arrest warrant for Mr Berezovsky on charges of money laundering.

In a statement, he said the warrant was part of a politically motivated campaign. "Given the extensive comment in the Russian media and the farce of a trial in absentia in the Russian courts, I have no doubt that the Brazilian story is an extension of the Kremlin's politicised campaign against me," Mr Berezovsky said.

quadraspazzed

Not a fan of Putin's regime by any means (nor of the UK state either I hasten to add), but...

QuoteThe Sun newspaper, quoting MI5 and MI6 sources, reported

Hmmm.

Uncle TechTip

Do keep up, the police said that something happened. Believe it or not, despite their reputation the Sun does occasionally print a true story.

wherearethespoons

And of course we now have lots of sackings. Russia have just expelled four British diplomats - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6906481.stm

Playground games.

quadraspazzed

Quote from: Uncle TechTip on July 19, 2007, 06:25:57 PM
Do keep up, the police said that something happened. Believe it or not, despite their reputation the Sun does occasionally print a true story.

Oh well, if the police said it...

(Without providing any evidence, their 'admission' from what I can see amounts to "yeah there was a plot, we foiled it, didn't tell anyone about it and shipped the evildoer off back to Russia".)