MOSCOW, June 26 (RAPSI) - A court in Marseille has seized businessman Boris Berezovsky’s property in Antibes, Prosecutor General’s Office spokesperson, Marina Gridneva, reported Thursday.
“On June 17, 2014, a court in Marseille ruled that property in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes department, Côte d'Azur) be seized,” the General Prosecutor’s Office statement says.
The court thus granted a petition from the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office filed under a criminal case being investigated by Russian law enforcement agencies.
Also, the statement says, “despite the fact that the property formally belongs to a French legal entity, the court took into account the arguments of the Russian party which claimed that the estate was purchased on the instruction of, and in the interest of Boris Berezovsky.”
Berezovsky fled Russia in 2001 and settled in Britain, sometimes calling himself Platon Elenin. He was found dead by his bodyguard in the bathroom of his house on Mill Lane, Ascot, Berkshire, in March 2013. The results of a post-mortem examination found the cause of death to be consistent with hanging, and a paramedic later said at the inquest that suicide was likely the cause, as there was no evidence indicating otherwise.
In March 2014, the coroner in charge of the inquest said there was no sufficient proof of either a suicide or a murder. Berezovsky left behind a tangled web of legal and financial disputes and obligations.