Posts Tagged ‘mark townsend’
Poison claim in mysterious Surrey death of Russian supergrass
Alexander Perepilichnyy’s friends question three-week delay in toxicology tests and say he may have been poisoned in Paris.
A Russian supergrass who died in mysterious circumstances outside his Surrey home may have been poisoned in Paris before travelling to England, his associates have claimed.
Alexander Perepilichnyy, a wealthy businessman who sought refuge in Britain after supplying evidence against an alleged crime syndicate in Russia, collapsed while jogging outside his Weybridge home almost five months ago. Toxicology tests on the 44-year-old’s body have failed to reveal a cause of death, although murder squad detectives are investigating whether he was poisoned.
It has now emerged that British police have been working with their French counterparts after establishing that on the day he died, 10 November 2012, Perepilichnyy travelled by Eurostar to London after spending three days in Paris. During his stay, the Russian booked and paid for a room at the Four Seasons Hotel George V, off the Champs-Elysées, where suites can cost more than £4,500 a night, but he did not stay there. Instead, Perepilichnyy chose to stay at a more modest three-star, £145-a-night hotel across the city.
Associates of Perepilichnyy believe it is “highly possible” he met his alleged poisoners in Paris before catching a morning train back to London and from there to Weybridge, where he rented a mansion in the gated St George’s Hill estate. Just after 5pm, the apparently healthy Russian was found dead in the street.
In 2006 Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned after meeting two KGB officers who are accused of serving him a cup of tea laced with radioactive polonium at the four-star Millennium hotel in London’s Grosvenor Square.
A spokesperson for Surrey police said that no officers or forensics experts had travelled to Paris, but that they were receiving “advice and support from other agencies”.
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Are Russian killers on the streets of Britain?
A jogger who collapsed and died in leafy Weybridge turns out to have been blowing the whistle on one of Russia’s biggest tax frauds. Mark Townsend reports on a crisis that has pitted the Kremlin against the US Senate and British police.
Shortly after 5.15pm on 10 November 2012, a jogger turned into Granville Road, Weybridge, running along the hedge-lined street of one of Britain’s wealthiest enclaves. Then, 50m from his home, he staggered into the road and died.
In the days that followed, Surrey police believed they were dealing with a natural, if unusual, death. Four months on, the passing of 44-year-old Alexander Perepilichnyy still remains a mystery. Two post-mortems have proved inconclusive, but the outcome of what Surrey police promise is their “full range” of toxicology tests is imminent.
To piece together Perepilichnyy’s final years is to drill down into the core of Russian criminality, according to one account.
What we know of Perepilichnyy is slight. In another age he might have been a rocket scientist. Peers called him a “genius”, a Ukranian whiz-kid with an uncanny knack for numbers. His favourite waste of time was, they say, discussing the theories behind cosmogony and Kondratiev waves – the long-term cycles of capitalism. However by the time Perepilichnyy arrived to study at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology – famous for supplying the brains behind the Soviet space race – Russia’s lunar ambitions had curdled with the collapse of communism. Instead Perepilichnyy applied his talents to the world of finance and was, until 2008, a star talent at an asset management firm in Moscow.
That year, on the other side of Moscow, across Red Square and the brown Moskva river, a rival investment fund to Perepilichnyy’s had become engulfed in crisis. Hermitage Capital was under the guidance of a man called Bill Browder, a naturalised Briton based in London who had built the investment firm into the largest foreign investor in Russia. But on Christmas Eve 2007, it had discovered itself to be the victim of a huge and sophisticated scam.
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Police ‘ignored’ fears that Russian mob killed witness who fled to Britain
Police investigating the death of a whistleblower found dead in Surrey were unwilling to believe that the Russian mafia may have been involved and “brushed off” attempts to explain that he had been at risk from an international organised crime syndicate, it has been claimed.
Since the body of Alexander Perepilichnyy was found outside his home three weeks ago, it has emerged that the 44-year-old had been the key co-operating witness in a Swiss investigation of a multimillion-pound tax fraud in Russia, linked to individuals suspected of involvement in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The claim that police were slow to realise the possible implications of the death of Perepilichnyy was made by businessman Bill Browder, who had hired Magnitsky to investigate a massive tax fraud perpetrated on his company, Hermitage Capital Management. He was aware that Perepilichnyy was assisting money-laundering investigations into the same corrupt Russian officials.
Upon hearing of Perepilichnyy’s death, which remains unexplained, Browder contacted Surrey police, explaining why it was crucial that they conducted a sophisticated autopsy. Six years ago, former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned with the radioactive element polonium-210 in London, after meeting two Russians at a central London hotel.
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Financier fears for life over ‘UK police leak’ to Russia
British police face questions over the apparent leaking of a businessman’s London home address to Russian officials implicated in the suspected murder of a prominent lawyer.
Newly disclosed court documents suggest the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) passed confidential information to staff at Russia’s interior ministry, who are accused of being involved in the death of Sergei Magnitsky.
Magnitsky, 37, was working for a British-based investment fund, Hermitage Capital Management, when he exposed a tax fraud worth £144m, the biggest in Russian history. After accusing interior ministry officials of fraud, he was detained in Moscow’s Butyrskaya prison, where he died in November 2009 after having had his medication withdrawn. The Kremlin’s human rights council claims he was tortured and probably beaten to death.
Now a senior employee of Hermitage – who has already received a number of death threats from Russia – claims his family has been placed in danger by the apparent collusion between UK police and Russian interior ministry officials.
In the two years since Magnitsky’s death, senior Hermitage staff have received death threats that prompted them to contact Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism unit, SO15, who offered security in case they were targeted by Russian hitmen operating in London.
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Secret visa bans over death of Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky
Up to 60 Russian officials implicated in the controversial death of a whistleblower have been secretly banned from entering the UK by the British government.
Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was working for Hermitage Capital Management, a British-based investment fund, when he exposed a tax fraud worth pounds 144m, the biggest in Russian history.
After making accusations against Interior Ministry officials, he was arrested and then died in police custody after being denied medical care. Human rights activists say that the father-of-two was tortured and badly beaten in the hours before his death in November 2009. John McCain, the former US presidential candidate, and others have called for sanctions against Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death.
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David Cameron urged to get tough with Russia over Sergei Magnitsky’s death
PM should use Kremlin visit to raise the case of whistleblower lawyer’s death, say politicians from US and UK.
Former US presidential candidate John McCain is among a number of senior American politicians urging David Cameron to bar from Britain dozens of Russian officials implicated in the controversial death of a whistleblower.
The prime minister arrives in Moscow on Monday, his first visit to the Kremlin, amid mounting international pressure to follow the lead of the US by introducing visa bans for individuals linked to the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The 37-year-old was working for a British company when he exposed the biggest tax fraud in Russian history. After accusing Interior Ministry officials, Magnitsky was arrested and died in police custody after being denied essential medical care. Investigators say the father of two was tortured and badly beaten in the hours before his death in November 2009.
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