RUSSIA: People who knew businessman Boris Berezovsky describe his health and money problems

Record ID: 752995

  • Title: RUSSIA: People who knew businessman Boris Berezovsky describe his health and money problems
  • Date: 24th March 2013
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) EKHO MOSKVY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ALEXEI VENEDIKTOV, SAYING: "Two weeks ago my friends told me they had seen him in London. He was walking slumped with just one bodyguard. There was no one around him, all friends had left him or maybe he could have fenced himself off his friends. But frankly, to imagine Boris Berezovsky (committing suicide) - he was a fighter above all, he also loved life very much - so to imagine this is hard for me. I think that such versions will fly around - everything is possible, but I wouldn't think that this is the most probable version of his death." RUSSIAN LAWYER ALEXANDER DOBROVINSKY PREPARING FOR INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) RUSSIAN LAWYER ALEXANDER DOBROVINSKY, SAYING: "Many people close to Boris Berezovsky have been saying in recent days and indeed in recent years that his financial situation had been worsening with every day. He had large debts." VARIOUS OF DOBROVINSKY CHECKING HIS PHONE (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) RUSSIAN LAWYER ALEXANDER DOBROVINSKY, SAYING: "The call that I received at 8 o'clock in the evening yesterday - and I trust this source because this is a very high-profile person in Great Britain - he told me that Berezovsky died and it was a suicide. Then there was a call from another source who said he had a heart attack. But in fact, the way Berezovsky died is secondary, I believe. With him an entire era passed away, and that's the most important thing."
  • Embargoed: 8th April 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: People
  • Reuters ID: LVAHHNA5LWHRHTAYH1LY6JCILNK
  • Story Text: A lawyer and political commentator close to exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky commented on Sunday (March 24) on the tycoon's death, saying he had been fighting depression, and that they'd been told he committed suicide.
    Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch who helped broker Vladimir Putin's rise to the Kremlin's top job only to become his sworn enemy, was found dead at his home in Britain on Saturday (March 23) in unclear circumstances. He was 67.
    In a country with a rich history of court intrigue and a reputation for opacity in the Kremlin from the tsarist era, Berezovsky's manoeuvring earned him a notorious reputation.
    "Boris Berezovsky was very consistent and cunning in creating for himself a Mephistopheles reputation. He believed, and he was very frank in this, that this would add to his political weight. Therefore, the real Boris Berezovsky is one man, while the mythological Boris Berezovsky, a Mephistopheles, is a completely different man. But as history usually goes, what will remain is the mythological reputation created by him here and abroad," said Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Russia's Ekho Moskvy radio.
    Credited with a part in saving Boris Yeltsin's political skin and shaping Putin into presidential material with the help of money and media, he was then blamed - formally or not - for dark episodes that followed his falling out with the Kremlin.
    They tycoon's fortunes fell when he lost a $6 billion legal battle last year with Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich.
    "After losing to Abramovich (in court), Boris Berezovsky was in a critical mental sformer prot��he accused of using the threat of Kremlin retribution to scare him into selling assets cheaply.tate, even though the sum that he lost was not that large, just 35 million pounds. It is laughable to believe that it could have made him broke. He was in a critical mental state, he even went to Israel to undergo treatment in a clinic specialized in treating people after long nervous breakdowns," Venediktov said.
    "Two weeks ago my friends told me they had seen him in London. He was walking slumped with just one bodyguard. There was no one around him, all friends had left him or maybe he could have fenced himself off his friends. But frankly, to imagine Boris Berezovsky (committing suicide) - he was a fighter above all, he also loved life very much - so to imagine this is hard for me. I think that such versions will fly around - everything is possible, but I wouldn't think that this is the most probable version of his death," Venediktov added.
    Dobrovinsky, a Russian lawyer who has also practice in London and know people from Berezovsky's inner circle, said he believed the tycoon had been under stress.
    "Many people close to Boris Berezovsky have been saying in recent days and indeed in recent years that his financial situation had been worsening with every day. He had large debts," Dobrovinsky said.
    "The call that I received at 8 o'clock in the evening yesterday - and I trust this source because this is a very high-profile person in Great Britain - he told me that Berezovsky died and it was a suicide. Then there was a call from another source who said he had a heart attack. But in fact, the way Berezovsky died is secondary, I believe. With him an entire era passed away, and that's the most important thing," Dobrovinsky added Berezovsky was found at his house in Ascot, a commuter town 25 miles west of London, by one of his bodyguards, possibly in his Russian sauna.
    Whatever the circumstances of his final hours, his death marks the end of an era for many Russians for whom Berezovsky epitomized the oligarch of the 1990s: brash, arrogant and dangerous alpha males who made their own rules.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register