Man deported in Berezovsky murder plot
Mr Berezovsky fled Russia to live in Britain
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Wednesday, 18, Jul 2007 08:05
A man has been deported after being arrested in connection with a plot to assassinate exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
UK police said the unnamed man was arrested in central London on suspicion of conspiracy to murder on July 21st, before being released without charge two days later and handed to immigration officials.
It is thought he has been deported to Russia.
The news comes after Mr Berezovsky himself revealed that British security forces had foiled an attempt on his life.
A Russian hitman had reportedly been plotting to shoot the 61-year-old former oligarch, an outspoken critic of Russia's president Vladimir Putin, at the Hilton Hotel on London's Park Lane, the Sun newspaper claims.
However MI5 and MI6 agents reportedly seized the would-be assassin after intercepting intelligence about the supposed murder plot.
Responding to official confirmation of an arrest in the case, Mr Berezovsky said he was happy that Britain was "very strong at protecting people".
"I don't have any chance to survive if not for the protection of the state which granted me political asylum," he told BBC News.
The development is likely to further sour relations between the UK and Russia amid the row over Moscow's refusal to extradite the man suspected by British police of killing former spy Alexander Litvinenko.
Responding to the government's decision to expel four Russian diplomats from Britain over the failure to hand over Andrei Lugovoi, Russia yesterday warned that it may expel more than 80 British diplomats in the ongoing dispute over his extradition.
In the latest claim which may add to tension to the relationship between Moscow and Russia, the Sun reports that a would-be assassin planned to lure Mr Berezovsky to a meeting at the Hilton at some point during the past fortnight.
A child allegedly accompanied him in order to avoid raising suspicion, but the paper claims that the British security service and Scotland Yard anti-terrorism police seized the gunman before he could carry out his planned attack.
Mr Berezovsky last night claimed that there had been several attempts to kill him in Britain, which has been his home since he fled from Russia in 2000.
He also told the BBC's Newsnight that he was "100 per cent sure" that Russian president Mr Putin was also behind the murder of his former friend Mr Litvinenko.
Mr Litvinenko, another critic of the Kremlin, died in London last November after being poisoned with the radioactive isotope polonium-210.
Moscow has repeatedly said that ex-KGB agent Mr Lugovoi, wanted in the UK over the murder, should be tried in Russia.