Berezovsky’s replies to queries of his own lawyer ended the first day of the trial. Boris Berezovsky will be further interrogated tomorrow.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Berezovsky Summons Fridman to Court
The London Royal Court of Justice set May 15 to the suit filed by Russia’s tycoon Boris Berezovsky against another oligarch, Alfa Group CEO Mikhail Fridman. The complaint stems from Fridman’s statement about the threats of Berezovsky. According to Fridman, Berezovsky had been threatening him in 1999, in time of the deal for buying out Kommersant Publishing House.
“After it, I became a corresponding member of the Academy of Science,” Berezovsky said yesterday to the obvious bewilderment of the jury. Before this statement, Berezovsky’s lawyer, Mr Brawn, spent nearly 40 minutes explaining the etymology of the verb “to threat,” making clear it was really insulting for his client.
The lawyer spared no effort to expose the recent history of Russia and the role of Berezovsky in it, disclosing varieties of fortune of his client, which led him to England in the end. So, the scientific title of Berezovsky was apparently the last thing the jury could have ever expected. Berezovsky’s replies to queries of his own lawyer ended the first day of the trial. The businessman will be further interrogated tomorrow.
The suit of Berezovsky roots in the challenging statement made by Mikhail Fridman October 28, 2004 during Vladimir Soloviev’s “To Barrier!” program broadcasted by NTV, where Fridman was facing Andrey Vasiliev, then general director of Kommersant Publishing House.
In the course of the heated debates, Fridman claimed he was willing to give a loan to Kommersant minors in 1999 so that they could buy out the Publishing House from its principal owner Vladimir Yakovlev.
Berezovsky, Fridman claimed, who was himself eyeing Kommersant, was “extremely displeased” and “threatening” when calling him. “Berezovsky was threatening me. In general, he was threatening everybody,” Fridman said the key phrase of the suit.
Berezovsky went to the London Royal Court of Justice against Fridman March 31, 2005 to seek remedy for the false declaration (the amount will be determined by the court) and not to let it happen again.
Due to the allegedly general threatening habit of Berezovsky, perhaps, the strength of Fridman's witnesses at the trial is impressive. The big names are Petr Aven, Vladimir Potanin and Boris Nemtsov. It looks like the London jury will have to master the brief history of Russia’s privatization in two weeks estimated as the trial’s duration.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 16, 2006
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