Russian spies plot to kill tycoon in Britain
London Times
THE security service MI5 has been told of plots by suspected Russian secret agents to assassinate a media tycoon granted asylum in Britain. One is said to have involved an attempt to kill him with a poisoned pen.
An agent for the SVR, the former KGB, is said to have been sent to Britain to stab Boris Berezovsky, the Russian billionaire, with a pen filled with poison as he attended a London court hearing to contest his extradition on fraud charges.
Disclosure of the plots follows a U-turn by David Blunkett, the home secretary, who had initially refused to grant Berezovsky political asylum. It has chilling echoes of the 1978 murder of Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov, who was killed by an agent using the tip of a poisoned umbrella.
The Russian spy is said to have confessed that he had orders to smuggle a cigarette lighter filled with a lethal poison into London’s Bow Street magistrates’ court where Berezovsky was due to attend the extradition hearings.
The agent planned to fill a pen with the liquid and then stab Berezovsky in the arm when passing by. But the would-be assassin apparently lost his nerve. He betrayed the plot to the tycoon and is said to have told the British authorities about it.
Although the security service and police declined to comment officially, senior Whitehall security officials said they were taking the allegations seriously.
One official confirmed that MI5 had been approached by a man claiming he had been sent to Britain to murder the tycoon and they had referred the matter to the police. The plot is understood to be under investigation by Scotland Yard. A Whitehall source said: “A number of allegations have been made about plots. One was made to MI5 and they passed it on.”
It has also emerged that the full extradition hearings Berezovsky was due to attend had been switched to a high security court at Belmarsh in south London, apparently because of police concerns for his safety.
Five years ago in Russia, a former secret agent claimed to have been told by his superiors to kill Berezovsky. The tycoon survived one assassination attempt in Russia when his chauffeur was decapitated by a remote-controlled bomb. At least two Russian parliament senators — members of his Liberal Russia party — have also been murdered in Russia.
Berezovsky was first alerted to the latest threats on his life when he was visited by Scotland Yard detectives last year. The officers told him they had received intelligence that unidentified people had been sent to Britain to assassinate him.
On two subsequent occasions Berezovsky says he was approached by men claiming they were Russian government assassins. Insiders say the first agent sent to kill Berezovsky decided to betray his own plot to MI5. One said: “He told MI5 he had been sent to kill Berezovsky. He said that if he didn’t do it he couldn’t go home. So he asked for political asylum.”
A second would-be assassin, the man with the poison pen, went to Berezovsky to reveal the scheme. “He asked him what he was supposed to do,” said the insider. Berezovsky advised the man to report the matter to the British authorities. He is understood to have since returned to Russia. Friends of Berezovsky dismissed suggestions that the allegations were part of an attempt to get political asylum, noting that the disclosure of the plots came after he had been granted asylum.
Berezovsky is one of the few so-called oligarchs who made fortunes in the lawlessness that followed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
At one time he controlled a vast empire, including an airline and the country’s main television station.
However, he fell out with Vladimir Putin when the Russian president set about stripping the oligarchs of their political influence. After a series of police raids on his business empire, Berezovsky fled Moscow in 2000 and came to Britain. But the Russians pursued him, seeking his extradition on £8m fraud charges.
Blunkett’s officials initially declined Berezovsky’s request for asylum. One insider said: “The Home Office told him that if the Russians had wanted to kill him they would have killed him during the two years he stayed in Moscow before fleeing to Britain.”
Scotland Yard declined to discuss the matter and referred all inquiries to the Home Office, which said it could not comment. The Kremlin and Russian secret service declined to comment. |
