Police in Britain and Russia launched separate inquiries into the multimillionaire Boris Berezovsky on Friday after he disclosed to the Guardian that he was plotting a ”revolution” to overthrow President Vladimir Putin. In Moscow, where investigators said they were opening a criminal investigation into the tycoon’s calls for the use of force to secure regime change, infuriated government ministers demanded that he be stripped of his refugee status and extradited to stand trial.
In London, detectives from Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism command began studying recordings of the Berezovsky interview after they were posted on the Guardian Unlimited website. They are looking to see whether he has committed any offence and to establish whether there are grounds to revoke his refugee status.
In Washington state department officials were also known to be studying the businessman’s repeated assertions that force must be used to get rid of Putin.
In comments which appeared to be calculated to enrage the Kremlin, Berezovsky told the Guardian: ”We need to use force to change this regime. It isn’t possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure.”
He added that he was in contact with like-minded people within Russia’s ruling inner circle, offering advice, finance, and ”my understanding of how it could be done”. Asked if he was effectively fomenting a revolution, he replied: ”You are absolutely correct, absolutely correct.”
On Friday Berezovsky was quoted by the Bloomberg news agency as saying: ”I am calling for revolution and revolution is always violent.” the Associated Press reported that the tycoon added: ”I don’t know how it will happen, but authoritarian regimes only collapse by force.”
Later he appeared to be anxious to retreat from that position, issuing a statement in which he said he was seeking a ”bloodless” revolution. ”I do support direct action, I do not advocate or support violence,” he said.
It appeared to be too late, however, with officials in Britain and Russia already determined to investigate his comments.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: ”The police will be looking at the statements he has made in the Guardian and elsewhere.”
The Foreign Office added: ”We deplore any call for the violent overthrow of a sovereign state. We expect everyone living, working or visiting the UK, whatever their status, to obey our laws. We will look carefully at these and any future statements by Mr Berezovsky in that light.”
Ministers were being kept informed of developments, but officials said it was inconceivable that the police would not look into a statement of that kind, as they evidently would if it had been made, for example, by an Islamist figure or group. The Home Office would also be examining the remarks to see if they constituted grounds to revoke refugee status granted under the 1951 UN convention.
In Moscow, Russia’s prosecutor general, Yury Chaika, said a fresh attempt would be made to have Berezovsky extradited from the UK. He said he had ordered his lawyers to draw up an international legal request. This would urge British authorities to give their own legal assessment of Berezovsky’s remarks. Prosecutor Marina Gridneva confirmed: ”We will again raise the question of stripping Berezovsky of his refugee status and extraditing him to Russia.”
Other senior Kremlin figures went further and suggested that Berezovsky had breached the strict conditions of his refugee status, which allowed him to stay in Britain. ”There are a lot of good lawyers in London,” said Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. ”Appeals to overthrow the political authorities in another country give a valid reason for taking the required legal measures.”
Russia had been asking the British authorities ”to put an end to the situation, in which Berezovsky enjoys the status of a political refugee, yet blatantly abuses this status and takes actions that require extradition according to British law”, Lavrov said.
In his Guardian interview the tycoon claimed he was already bankrolling people close to the president who were conspiring against him. His remarks set off a storm in Russia, where the state-controlled TV stations led reports on the Guardian interview and a host of pro-Kremlin MPs queued up to denounce him.
Berezovsky (61) made his fortune, currently estimated at around £850-million, during the Boris Yeltsin years, when he bought state assets at knockdown prices during Russia’s rush towards privatisation.
Although he played a key role in ensuring Putin’s victory in the 2000 presidential elections, the two men fell out as the newly elected leader successfully wrested control of Russia back from the so-called oligarchy, the small group of tycoons who had come to dominate the country’s economy. A few months after the election Berezovsky fled Russia, and applied successfully for asylum in the UK.
Two previous Russian attempts to extradite him to stand trial in Moscow have failed after judges in London ruled that he cannot be forced to leave the country as long as he enjoys refugee status.
The latest Russian request is likely to place further pressure on the Foreign Office at a time when British-Russian relations are already under strain because of the unsolved murder last year in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a former employee of Mr Berezovsky.
Meanwhile, thousands of protesters are expected to take part in anti-Putin demonstrations in Moscow and St Petersburg today and tomorrow.
Last month police in St Petersburg violently dispersed a rally by 5 000 people. It was the largest demonstration against the Kremlin regime since Putin became president in 2000. – Guardian Unlimited Â