LONDON, April 8 – RAPSI. An individual was offered £660,000 to assassinate former Bank of Moscow president Andrei Borodin, who was granted asylum in the UK last February based on claims of political persecution, according to The Daily Mirror.

The news agency reported that the same police officers investigating the recent death of Russian oligarch and outspoken Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky have taken the alleged Borodin murder plot under their wing as well.

Berezovsky was found dead in his UK home on March 23. An investigation into the cause of death is currently underway.

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 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.

In November 2011, Interpol's Russian office placed 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 frozen assets if Borodin is convicted of having 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.

Kommersant then reported that the Russian Prosecutor General's Office intended to send the UK a request to revoke Borodin’s political asylum status.
Chief of the Prosecutor General's Office’s main department for international cooperationSaak Karapetyan reportedly vowed to 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.