• Russian tycoon Berezovsky died from hanging, UK police say

    Exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a prominent Russian opposition figure, was found dead at his home near London on Saturday. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    Matthew Lloyd / Matthew Lloyd / Getty Images

    An exterior view of the home of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky after he was found dead on Saturday in Ascot, England.

    By Jeff Black, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who was found dead in country estate south of London over the weekend, died of hanging, Thames Valley Police reported on Monday.

    A British pathologist who carried out the exam on the body of the 67-year-old Russian opposition figure determined that the “cause of death is consistent with hanging,” police said in a statement.

    “The pathologist has found nothing to indicate a violent struggle,” the statement said.

    More tests were planned on the body, including toxicology exams to determine what substances were in his system. Those results won’t likely be known for several weeks, according to police.

    In addition, police said crime scene investigators would continue combing over Berezovsky’s property in Ascot for several days.


    Police also noted that, though Berezovsky has been named, the formal identification process would not be completed until Tuesday.

    Earlier police said the area around the estate would remain sealed off "until Wednesday or Thursday in order to protect the scene." An earlier search for evidence of radiation or chemicals returned up negative.

    Berezovsky made his fortune selling luxury cars and later founded Moscow’s first independent television station in the tumultuous times after Russia privatized state assets in the 1990s.

    He helped orchestrate the re-election of Boris Yeltsin in 1996 and also played a role in Vladimir Putin's rise to power. Berezovsky, however, fell out of favor when Putin became president in 2000 — and became one of the strongman’s critics. 

    He was granted political asylum in Britain in 2003.

    Related:

    Russian tycoon's mysterious death: Home to be sealed off for days

    This story was originally published on Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:46 PM EDT

  • Russian tycoon's mysterious death: Home to be sealed off for days

    Exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a prominent Russian opposition figure, was found dead at his home near London on Saturday. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News

    LONDON - A cordon will surround the U.K. home of exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky until at least Wednesday, while detectives await the initial results of autopsy into his unexplained death.

    The area will remained sealed off "until Wednesday or Thursday in order to protect the scene,” a spokesman for Thames Valley Police said Monday. An earlier search for evidence of radiation or chemicals returned a negative result.

    Government pathologists were due to begin a post-mortem Monday afternoon on the 67-year-old, whose body was found in the locked bathroom of his large house in rural Berkshire, about 25 miles west of London. It was not clear when the initial results would be available to police.

    "It would be wrong to speculate on the cause of death until the post-mortem has been carried out," Detective Chief Inspector Kevin Brown said in a statement late Sunday. "We do not have any evidence at this stage to suggest third-party involvement."

    However, his death has raised suspicion in Britain where memories linger of the murder of Berezovsky's friend, Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy poisoned with radioactive material in London in 2006.

    Like Litvinenko, Berezovsky had become an enemy of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin and his suspicious death caused a major diplomatic rift between London and Moscow.

    'Many enemies'
    His death on Saturday makes him the latest in a line of former Soviet residents to have met an untimely end in Britain.

    Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, told the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph that her friend Berezovsky had "many enemies" and that it was "not likely" he that he had committed suicide.

    Her lawyer last month accused Britain and Russia of colluding to try to shut down an inquiry into his death for the sake of lucrative trade deals.

    Matthew Lloyd / Getty Images

    The home of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky in Sunningdale, England.

    Berezovsky accumulated his wealth in the early 1990s, when Russia's privatization of state assets turned chaotic. He orchestrated the re-election of Boris Yeltsin in 1996 and played a role in Putin's rise to prominence, but he fell out of favor with the latter after Putin became president of Russia in 2000. 

    He suffered a huge financial blow in 2011 after agreeing one of Britain's biggest-ever divorce settlements – reportedly as much as $100m - with his former wife, Galina.

    Reuters reported that Berezovsky was also under pressure after losing a $6 billion court case to Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, a former business partner he sued in one of the most expensive cases in British legal history.

    "He had no money, he had lost it all. He was unbelievably depressed," Tim Bell, a public relations executive who was one of his closest British advisers, told the Sunday Times newspaper. "It's all very sad."

    Meanwhile, Putin's spokesman said Berezovsky, seen by Moscow as a criminal who should stand trial for fraud and tax evasion, had written to Putin asking for forgiveness - a suggestion dismissed by one of the oligarch's friends, Reuters said.

    "Berezovsky sent Vladimir Putin a letter he wrote personally, in which he acknowledged that he had made many mistakes, asked Putin's forgiveness for these mistakes and appealed to Putin to help him return to his homeland," said Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

    A friend of Berezovsky's in London, Andrei Sidelnikov, told Reuters the idea that the businessman would write a letter to Putin was "complete nonsense".

    "He was a sane person and he understood that he would never be able to return under Putin's regime, for political reasons," Sidelnikov said.

    Related:

    Full Russia coverage from NBC News

    This story was originally published on Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:19 AM EDT

  • Russia charges anti-Putin protester Alexei Navalny in latest crackdown on dissent

    Mikhail Voskresensky / Reuters

    Prominent anti-corruption blogger and opposition figure Alexei Navalny leaves the Investigative Committee in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday.

    By Reuters

    MOSCOW -- Russian investigators charged street protest leader Alexei Navalny with theft Tuesday and banned him from leaving the country, threatening a heavy jail term in what supporters say is a growing crackdown on dissent by President Vladimir Putin.

    Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger who has organized demonstrations that have dented Putin's authority, dismissed the charge as absurd and other opposition leaders accused Putin of using KGB-style tactics to try to silence his critics.

    Other moves which the opposition depict as a crackdown on dissent since Putin began a six-year term in May include a law increasing fines for protesters, closer controls of the Internet and tighter rules for foreign-funded campaign and lobby groups.


    Russia's federal Investigative Committee said in a statement that Navalny, 36, had been charged over the theft of timber from a state firm while he was advising a regional governor in 2009, and he could face a 10-year sentence.

    "I have been charged and ordered not to leave," Navalny said after emerging from the Investigative Committee headquarters, where he had been summoned for the presentation of what he had expected would be a less severe charge.

    Rock Center Correspondent Harry Smith journeyed to Moscow where he met blogger Alexei Navalny, a vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin and his party United Russia, ahead of the Russian presidential elections. Navalny galvanized protesters through social media and uses his website to expose alleged political corruption.

    "This is really quite absurd and very strange because they have completely changed the essence of the accusation, compared to what it was before," Navalny, who had been questioned repeatedly since the case was opened in 2010, told reporters.

    He made clear he would not be silenced. "I will continue to do what I have been doing, and in this sense nothing changes for me," said Navalny, who is also a lawyer. "We believe that what is happening now is illegal. We will use the methods of legal defense at our disposal. What else can we do?"

    From March 2012: Anti-Putin activists pay high price, but refuse to back down

    Leading voice of dissent
    Navalny is one of the few people seen as capable of emerging as a viable leader of the fractious opposition, although critics say he has nationalist tendencies.

    He gained prominence by fighting corruption at state-controlled companies and used the Internet to do so, appealing to a tech-savvy generation of urban Russians who have turned away from the mainstream media.

    Before parliamentary elections last December he helped to energize a struggling opposition, popularizing a phrase referring to the ruling United Russia party, then headed by Putin, as the "party of swindlers and thieves."

    'Serious problems' with vote that kept Putin in power, monitors say

    He was also among the leaders of large protests prompted by allegations of fraud in the election on behalf of United Russia, which saw its big majority in parliament cut to a handful of seats despite the accusations that it had cheated.

    'Mortal fear'
    "This case has been fabricated from beginning to end," said Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who is a prominent Putin opponent. "The true reason for what is happening is Putin's mortal fear of losing power. ... He is wildly afraid of the opposition, including Navalny."

    More Europe coverage from NBCNews.com

    In a reference to the Cheka secret police, a precursor of the Soviet KGB, Nemtsov said: "Putin is using traditional Chekist methods. ... Fabricated cases, charges, arrests, jail."

    Putin won a presidential election on March 4 despite the largest protests since the start of his 12-year rule, during which he has served as president for eight years and as prime minister for four. At times attendance at the rallies reached more than 100,000, witnesses said, although they have become less frequent since Putin returned to power.

    But opponents say a series of steps he has taken in recent months to tighten control show the former KGB agent is worried about losing his grip on the world's largest country.

    Punk rockers go on trial over anti-Putin church protest

    Tough censorship law
    Putin, who has repeatedly warned against rocking the boat in speeches since his election, signed a law on Monday toughening punishment for defamation and another on Tuesday that opponents say could be used to censor the Internet.

    More Russia coverage from NBCNews.com

    In a case which critics say will indicate how he plans to treat opponents during his new term, three women from the punk band "Pussy Riot" went on trial Monday over an unsanctioned protest performance at the altar of Russia's main cathedral, where they called on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out!"

    Three female punk rockers are put on trial in Russia after taking over the pulpit at an Orthodox cathedral and performing a controversial song criticizing President Putin. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    Their trial entered its second day Tuesday in a Moscow court, and they face up to seven years in jail over a protest they say was aimed against the close relationship between Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church.

    Navalny had been detained and served brief terms in custody several times over administrative offenses linked to the protests, but had never been charged with a more serious crime.

    Complete international coverage on NBCNews.com

    Lawyers for Navalny had said Friday they expected he would be charged over the case in Kirov province. But they had expected him to face a different charge punishable by up to five years in jail, rather than 10.

    The Investigative Committee said more than 10,000 cubic meters of timber were stolen as the result of a plot between Navalny and two company chiefs, causing the regional government to lose more than 16 million roubles ($497,000).

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  • Former top KGB spy found dead in Moscow apartment

    By msnbc.com news services

    Ex-Soviet KGB foreign intelligence chief Leonid Shebarshin was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Friday in an apparent suicide, Russian investigators said.

    Shebarshin, 77, who headed the First Chief Directorate, a foreign intelligence service within the KGB in 1989-1991, appeared to have committed suicide, the Investigative Committee said on its website. A gun, which he was awarded upon retirement, was discovered near his body. Shebarshin had a bullet wound in his head, The Moscow Times reported.

    Police also found a suicide note on the scene, Interfax news agency quoted a police official as saying.

    The ex-spy, fluent in Urdu, worked on assignments in Pakistan, India and Iran in the 1950s-1970s. He was appointed deputy chief of foreign intelligence in 1987, and promoted to head the service in 1989.

    Shebarshin briefly occupied the KGB's top post after the failed August 1991 hardline coup, intended to halt president Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, which paved the way for the collapse of the Communist Party, the end of the Soviet Union and the creation of the present-day Russian state.

    He resigned from active service shortly after the coup. During his life, Shebarshin wrote books and articles on the history of foreign intelligence work.

    According to The Independent, the lifenews.ru website quoted extracts from Shebarshin's diary found at the scene, which showed he might have had health problems. According to the report, the last entry read:

    "March, 29 - 17.15, left eye failure. 19.00, went completely blind. Foreign Intelligence duty officer 4293593."

    The KGB fragmented after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its once-mighty foreign intelligence service, crippled by under financing and corruption in the 1990s, suffered damage to its reputation in a number of embarrassing spy failures abroad.

    The U.S. intelligence services exposed a group of 10 Russian spies operating on their territory in 2010, which was followed by a Cold War era-type spy swap between the two ex-foes.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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