© John Downing/Getty ImagesBoris Berezovsky at his home in Surrey, before his death.
Kiselyov does a great job here explaining who had the ultimate motive in eliminating Berezovsky.
The man was a repugnant con-artist, criminal and murderer, who most likely murdered the American Forbes editor Paul Khlebnikov in Moscow in 2004. He was the epitome of the Jewish mafia that Putin ran out of the country in the early 2000s.
He fled to the UK, and conspired with British Intelligence to fight Russia and Putin at all costs, and was murdered by them when they realized he knew too much.
Transcript:
Dmitry Kiselyov:
Back to serious news. The main crime story related to Great Britain this week was a long interview with Boris Berezovsky's eldest daughter Elizaveta, published by a Ukrainian news agency, Gordon. Boris Berezovsky, a fugitive Russian oligarch, was one of the most influential people in the Kremlin in the 1990s. He used to be one of Putin's bitter enemies, but, at the end of his life, Berezovsky reconsidered a lot of his views. While living in London, he cooperated with British special forces.
Berezovsky was talented and extremely resourceful when it came to planning any kind of provocation. In a way, he was a gambler: He admitted to investing over $50 million in the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. His name also came up in the alleged poisoning of Litvinenko who was exposed to radioactive polonium. The poisoning may have been staged in order to frame the Russian government. To do a dramatic photo shoot, Berezovsky even told to shave Litvinenko's head, like, exposed to radiation, the victim even lost his hair. The photo was spread around the world and the scandal was a success. Although even Judge Owen couldn't accuse the Kremlin of poisoning Litvinenko in his final judgment.
Berezovsky spent the last six months of his life quietly. He avoided reporters and retired to Ascot, a small, quiet place far away from London. The ex-oligarch stayed in his ex-wife's house, passing the time by reflecting on who he was, why, and whether he should return to "Mother Russia".
In Russia, however, he would have faced a number of fraud and money laundering charges. He had also been sentenced in absentia to thirteen years of imprisonment. But he couldn't stop thinking of Russia. Berezovsky's fatal mistake was that he began sharing those thoughts with others. If so, then that explains why British special forces may have wanted him dead. Berezovsky also sent Putin two letters, asking for forgiveness and permission to return to Russia.
In the eyes of British special forces, by such a twist he crossed the line. Berezovsky knew too much about them. And then what happened happened. In March of 2013, Berezovsky was found dead on his bathroom floor, with a ligature mark on his neck. Berezovsky's ripped scarf lied next to his body.
So was it a suicide or a homicide? In Great Britain, a coroner is an official who investigates unexplained deaths. Such an official was appointed to clarify the circumstances behind Berezovsky's death. But the coroner recorded an open verdict, which means the cause of Berezovsky's death remained unclear.
Recently, Boris Berezovsky's eldest daughter Liza gave an interview, in which she convincingly showed that her father died through violence, that is he was killed. Liza doesn't trust the British police, who have been keeping an eye on her, or any of those British experts who insisted in court that suicide was the cause of her father's death. Ever since then, she's been under surveillance by British special forces.
Elizaveta Berezovskaya:
"After my father died, my cell phone started having issues. Also, over the first few days, I couldn't use my email at all: my screen kept jumping around. Of course, I went to the police, but they swore they had nothing to do with it and couldn't figure out what was wrong." The day her father died, Liza also got to experience poisoning-related lies that London likes to use: she wasn't allowed in the house.
Elizaveta Berezovskaya:
"I took a cab and went to my Dad's house. A large territory starting far away from the house was blocked. I introduced myself, but they didn't let me in. As it turned out later, there was a false alarm that the territory was contaminated with chemical materials. That's why, for a long time, they didn't let anyone inside."
Liza Berezovskaya might have never found out what happened to her father, had it not been for one of the best forensic pathologists she happened to come across. The German specialist joined an independent investigation on Liza's behalf.
Bernd Brinkmann made a name for himself when, 15 years after the crime was committed, he managed to prove that Roberto Calvi, chairman of a large, private Italian bank, Banco Ambrosiano, was strangled by the murderers and then hanged beneath a bridge in London.
It was an interesting crime story. Roberto Calvi wasn't a regular man. He was in charge of the Vatican's finances and knew about the Holy See's secret affairs. And then, suddenly, he "hanged" himself in London. The story even became part of Coppola's movie "The Godfather".
Then Berezovsky sort of "hanged" himself, too. As if in a movie that has been re-winded, the perfect English setup gets ruined by the same German forensic pathologist, professor Bernd Brinkmann.
Elizaveta Berezovskaya:
"Professor Brinkmann turned out to be very nice and interesting, and we immediately found common ground. I speak German well. On the one hand, it's pretty useless because all Germans speak good English. But on the other hand, all of them brighten up when you start speaking to them in German. We then found out that our birthdays fell on the same day. Long story short, we have a lot in common. I brought him the papers; professor Brinkmann made some copies so as to go over everything later.
After that, he disappeared for a while. I waited, then called him. He said: "Liza, where have you been? There's nothing here that says it was a suicide. You need to get here now!" I came there for the second time. He broke down the differences between a murder and a suicide for me. My medical degree came in handy. There are a lot of differences, including the shape of a ligature mark, the reaction of various organs and tissues and other indicators."
There's more. Brinkmann noticed that although there were no visible signs of a violent struggle, the murderer may have attacked Berezovsky from behind and begun to strangle him immediately. The body also had a fractured rib. It was then found that English police hadn't even bothered with crime scene reconstruction and focused only on the theory of Berezovsky committing a suicide.
Elizaveta Berezovskaya:
"Having read all the papers, I had a lot of questions to my father's security guard. For some reason, that unfortunate morning, the guard decided to sleep in, although my Dad usually woke up early. Then the guard talked to his wife on the phone for a long time, then he went to get coffee, then he went to the pharmacy to get some cold medicine, then he went to get groceries...
He returned by 3 pm. The housekeepers were away because it was Saturday and they had a day off. All of this seems very suspicious to me."
Another guard, Avi, also raised suspicion.
Elizaveta Berezovskaya:
"It turned out that, before leaving, Avi wouldn't activate the alarm system. According to him, my father didn't ask him to do so. Also, all the cameras were off because my father never asked Avi to turn them on. But he shouldn't ask: your job was to ensure his safety!"
The verdict in court was different from the one British special forces were hoping to hear.
Elizaveta Berezovskaya:
"The coroner recorded an open verdict. Despite the fact that all the English experts insisted on accepting the suicide theory, professor Brinkmann, who was the last to make a statement, played a decisive role. He presented an unanswerable case. Honestly, at first, I didn't think it would be possible to break the system.
A German specialist presented a case on his own, in a court full of English experts. I also think that the coroner was brave to admit that professor Brinkmann's case cast reasonable doubt."
There's another detail Elizaveta Berezovskaya finds important. Her father died on Saturday. On Monday, he was planning to go to Israel to stay there. Berezovsky wasn't going to return to Britain, which left little time for his murder. Once the decision was made, the killer had to act.
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