Last man standing in gang of four dissidents
Three exiles who made witness statements about corruption at the highest levels in Moscow are dead
Hayley Dixon, Tom Ball Roland Oliphant
A DECADE ago a band of Russian exiles opposed to Vladimir Putin gathered in the offices of a London law firm to swear witness statements about corruption in their homeland.
Now, as the Metropolitan Police investigate the suspected murder of Nikolai Glushkov, only one of the four men is left standing. Yuli Dubov has seen the untimely death of his friends Badri Patarkatsishvili, Boris Berezovsky and now Mr Glushkov, but he refuses to be afraid.
Last night he told The Daily Telegraph that the oligarchs in Britain had always been a target of the Russian state but he refuses to take on extra security measures.
Mr Dubov said: “I’m not in any way frightened. I don’t think I’m in any way in danger. I just live as I always lived, doing what I always did. I’m not afraid for myself, but I’m afraid for what is going to happen on a global scale.
“I mean that Putin is going to war. I think that what we now observe is a prequel. I’m afraid this is exactly what is going to happen… [a war].
“We have always been targeted by the state. I think I have just got accus- tomed to that. I can’t say that I’m surprised about Nikolai. I’ve been receiving bits of information since he died.”
In 2008 the author, along with Mr Berezovsky and Mr Patarkatsishvili, had provided sworn witness statements in the City office of Lord Goldsmith QC, the former Attorney General, relating to various cases involving seizure of assets and property rights in the former Soviet Union.
Mr Glushkov was also present, and the men were described as the four musketeers, united in defiance against Mr Putin. As they stood outside the offices waiting for their drivers, one reportedly joked that it was a shame that the KGB were not there to see them. Hours later, 52-year-old Mr Patarkat-
sishvili collapsed and died at his Surrey mansion. A pathologist concluded he had suffered a heart attack, but his friends suspected he was murdered.
Just weeks after the fifth anniversary of Patarkatsishvili death, Mr Berezovksy was found hanged in the bathroom of his own Surrey mansion. A coroner recorded an open verdict, but his friends believed he had been targeted by Mr Putin.
And on Monday, just days before the fifth anniversary of Mr Berezovsky’s death, Mr Glushkov was found strangled in his south London home.
The death of Mr Glushkov, eight days after former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent on the streets of Salisbury, will increase concern for Russian dissidents who have sought asylum in the UK.
After Mr Berezovsky and Mr Dubov were granted asylum in 2003 a group of exiles began to coalesce around them, including Akhmed Zakayev, formerly prime minister of the unrecognised Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, who successfully fought extradition and remains in London.
Elena Tregubova, a journalist and author whose writing garnered Kremlin disapproval, also fled here after a bomb exploded at her Moscow flat.
The group also included Alexander Litvinenko, who was murdered in London with Polonium 210 on the orders of Mr Putin.
Dr Andrew Foxall, director of the Russia and Eurasia studies centre at The Henry Jackson Society, said: “Over the last 12 years, the Kremlin has left a trail of bodies across the West, but mainly in the UK.
“While the police investigation into the death of Nikolai Glushkov must be allowed to run its course, we should be clear that critics of Vladimir Putin’s regime have died in the UK under suspicious circumstances on an alarmingly regular basis.”
Bill Browder, the American-born financier, who has described himself as “Putin’s Number One enemy”, has devoted himself to exposing corruption in Russia.
He said: “Nikolai Glushkov’s death has now been determined to have been murder. Putin now feels totally free to kill at will in the UK.”