MOSCOW, March 4 - RAPSI. The Prosecutor General's Office intends to send the UK a request to revoke the political refugee status granted to Bank of Moscow's former CEO Andrei Borodin, who is wanted in Russia for fraud, Saak Karapetyan, chief of the office's main department for international cooperation, told Kommersant newspaper.
In late 2010 Borodin and his former first deputy Dmitry Akulinin were charged with large-scale fraud involving state funds. They are accused of lending $443 million to shell companies, which then transferred the funds to Yelena Baturina, the wife of Moscow ex-mayor Yury Luzhkov and the former owner of the construction empire Inteco.
Borodin, under whom the Bank of Moscow functioned as the city's chief investment vehicle under Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, fled to the UK in 2011.
In November 2011, Interpol's Russian office put a red notice on Borodin and Akulinin, stating that they were wanted by Russia for fraud.
Borodin claims that the criminal cases against him and his first deputy were opened on false premises and were politically motivated.
The Russian court has placed an injunction over $400 million in Borodin's foreign bank accounts and has arrested his land plots, unfinished construction projects, exclusive cars and his small stake in the Bank of Moscow.
The Bank of Moscow, which was taken over by VTB last year and issued 295 billion rubles (nearly $10 billion) to replenish its budget, will claim the arrested assets if Borodin is proved in court to have caused the bank losses, a bank spokesperson said in October last year.
Borodin's lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov told RAPSI on March 1 that Britain had granted Andrei Borodin political asylum
Saak Karapetyan has said the Prosecutor General's Office will continue to press charges against Borodin and will search for him abroad. He said that they were cooperating with the law enforcement agencies of Switzerland, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Latvia and Luxembourg on this case.