Banker Andrei Borodin granted asylum in Britain after fleeing Vladimir Putin's Russia
Britain has risked opening a new rift with the Kremlin by granting political asylum to a prominent Russian banker accused of fraud in his own country.
Andrei Borodin, left, had been given refuge by Britain after he submitted evidence that he was targeted by Dmitry Medvedev Photo: AP
By Tom Parfitt, Moscow
8:29PM GMT 01 Mar 2013
Andrei Borodin, 45, told The Daily Telegraph that Britain had given him refuge after he submitted evidence showing how he was targeted for a politically motivated prosecution by Dmitry Medvedev, the former president who is now Russia’s prime minister.
The Kremlin denounced the Home Office’s decision, accusing Britain of interfering in an “ordinary criminal” matter and declaring the asylum application a “simple ruse”.
Mr Borodin fled to London in 2011 and, soon afterwards, bought Britain’s most expensive home, the £140 million Park Place Estate near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.
He was previously chief executive and co-owner of the Bank of Moscow. Mr Borodin is wanted in Russia for alleged fraud and was made the subject of an Interpol “red notice” last summer. He was close to Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow who was ousted three years ago, and to the politician’s wife, Yelena Baturina, a billionaire property magnate.
Mr Borodin is accused of enabling a loan of £270million from his bank – then partly controlled by the Moscow city government – to a company that used the money to buy land from Ms Baturina at an inflated price.
Andrei Borodin bought thte Park Palace Estate after fleeing Russia (Alamy)
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But the banker told The Daily Telegraph that the accusation was fabricated after he resisted a state takeover of his bank. “The president of Russia at the time, Dmitry Medvedev, was behind this,” said Mr Borodin. “We revealed that we believe all the investigations conducted in Russia are politically motivated as a weapon of the Russian authorities to persecute me and my colleagues.”
As a result, Mr Borodin said that he was forced to sell his stake in the bank — which was eventually taken over by the state. “I believe they were scared the Bank of Moscow might support former mayor Luzhkov, should he decide to go into Russian politics after his dismissal,” he added.
He said that “some people” also “wanted to make a nice profit” from the takeover.
Asked if he thought that Vladimir Putin, now president, had also played a role in his fate, Mr Borodin replied: “Nothing important in Russia can be done without the knowledge of the number one in the country. Mr Putin built a system of autocracy, corruption and unprofessionalism in Russia and now he is a hostage to this system. And what happened to me is the result of the functioning of this system, whose father is Putin.”
Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev (AFP)
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The Home Office said that it would not comment on an individual case, but a Whitehall source declined to deny that Mr Borodin had been given asylum.
Russia requested his extradition from Britain last year and the decision has infuriated the Kremlin.
Natalya Timakova, a spokesman for Mr Medvedev, said: “The practice of receiving political asylum, especially in England, has got to the point that it doesn’t matter what the applicant did. What’s important is to announce as loudly as possible that you are being politically persecuted and that will be a guarantee of receiving political asylum. We can only regret that this simple ruse worked again in the United Kingdom.”
Britain’s willingness to grant refuge to highly controversial figures has been a persistent thorn in Anglo-Russian relations. In particular, the Kremlin was incensed that Boris Berezovsky, a fugitive oligarch, and Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen rebel envoy, were both given asylum in London.
Mr Luzhkov, the former mayor, told a Moscow radio station that he was convinced of Mr Borodin’s innocence. “If Borodin was granted political asylum in England, then the English did that having enough basis to make such a decision,” he said.
Alexander Lebedev doesn't agree with Britain's move (Reuters)
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However, Alexander Lebedev, the billionaire Russian businessman who owns the Evening Standard and the Independent, said Britain’s move was “just not right”, adding: “The Home Office needs to explain in some public forum why it considers a person who was never involved in politics is some kind of political dissident. We’re talking about the boss of a huge bank where a vast sum of money went missing.” Any “real dissidents” had “nothing to do with big money”.
Mr Lebedev, who lost an election against Mr Luzhkov for mayor of Moscow in 2003, added: “The Kremlin has nothing to do with this. I don’t believe that President Medvedev took away Borodin’s business and persecuted him as some kind of politician, because he’s not a politician.”
Mr Borodin declined to respond to Mr Lebedev’s comments. “I’m not really interested in the opinion of this gentleman,” he said.
