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UK Government Tells Exiled Tycoon Berezovsky Not to Plot Against Russian President Putin Boris Berezovsky, the Russian businessman who is now living in Britain under political asylum has been warned by the government not to campaign for the overthrow of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the Financial Times said. Britain’s foreign secretary Jack Straw said on Monday that Berezovsky’s refugee status could be reviewed at any time if he was “using the UK as a base from which to foment violent disorder or terrorism in other countries”. The warning comes after Berezovsky, a vocal critic of Putin, told a Moscow radio station last month thbat he had been planning a coup against Putin for the previous 18 months. Berezovsky, a close ally of former president Boris Yeltsin, exiled himself to London and was granted asylum in the UK in 2003. His presence in the UK, which has refused requests to return him to Russia, has been a source of tension between London and Moscow and helped sour previously friendly ties between Tony Blair, prime minister, and Putin. Berezovsky has been the subject of persistent fraud
investigations in Moscow, which he rejects as politically motivated. Tensions escalated last month when Russian security services accused four British diplomats of espionage. Russian prosecutors have also re-opened an investigation into English language teaching at the British Council in St Petersburg, and the authorities claim the UK is improperly channeling money to non-governmental organizations that campaign against Putin’s government. But Straw yesterday attempted to set a limit on how far the UK was willing to become the base for opponents of the Russian regime. He said it was unacceptable to advocate the violent overthrow of a sovereign state and that the UK condemned such comments unreservedly. He added that the “UK government respects Russia’s constitutional arrangements and the territorial integrity of the Russian federation”. Berezovsky made his fortune as an entrepreneur, selling the Sibneft oil company in 1997. This month he said he wanted to protect his remaining Russian business interests from “political pressure” by selling out to partner Badri Patarkatsishvili. ---------------------------------------------------
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