‘Rootless genius’

Published on 25 March 2013 at 10:48

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On March 23, Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, 67, was found dead at his home, in Mill Lane, close to Ascot in the UK, where he had lived in exile since 2000. Police have yet to establish the cause of death.

Although suicide is a possibility, police are examining the circumstances particularly closely, due to the multiple previous attempts on Mr Berezovsky's life and his close ties to murdered Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with a radioactive isotope in London in 2006.

“He played a key role in Russian politics in the 1990s,” notes the newspaper, “in particular in the presidential election and the change of government. In the early 2000s, he was one of the most high profile opponents of [current Russian President] Vladimir Putin.”

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In an informal interview on the eve of his death with the Russian edition of Forbes, Berezovsky declared that “he had nothing to live for.”

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