By RIA Novosti
Tbilisi : Georgia’s political opposition leaders have held consultations with London-based Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, Georgia’s Rustavi-2 TV-channel reported on Thursday.
The channel said Berezovsky, wanted for embezzlement in Russia, confirmed this information, saying he had met with unified Georgian opposition leader Giorgy Khaindrava in the British capital.
“This is true. I will not comment on anything else,” Berezovsky told a reporter for the channel.
Khaindrava confirmed that he had travelled to London, but said he made the trip to see the widow of Georgian businessman and opposition leader Badri Patarkatsishvili, who died in London of a heart attack on February 13.
Last month Berezovsky applied to the Georgian consulate in London for an urgent visa to attend Patarkatsishvili’s funeral, but was refused.
The television channel also said that Berezovsky met with Tinatin Khidasheli, a member of Georgia’s Republican Party and the wife of the party’s leader.
Russia has issued multiple warrants for Berezovsky’s arrest and has repeatedly demanded that the U.K. extradite him. The businessman is accused of plotting to stage a coup in Russia, as well as embezzling $13 million from a leading Russian bank. He has been sentenced ‘in absentia’ to six years imprisonment in Moscow on charges of stealing funds from the state airline Aeroflot.
Eleven criminal probes have so far been launched in Russia against Berezovsky, a one-time close associate of the late Russian president Boris Yeltsin.