WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish authorities have arrested the former lawyer of late Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky in an investigation related to attacks on Russian opposition figures, Polish radio reported on Friday.
The arrest of the lawyer, identified by prosecutors only as Anatoly B, had earlier been reported by independent Russian media, Polish private radio channel RMF FM said.
A spokesperson for the National Prosecutors’ Office confirmed the arrest but declined to give a reason.
“I can confirm that Mr. Anatoly B. was detained in Poland and charged… The court imposed pre-trial arrest for three months,” the spokesperson told Reuters.
NATO member Poland has arrested several people in recent months in connection with acts of sabotage on its territory that it says were committed on Russian orders.
In April two people were detained on suspicion of attacking Leonid Volkov, an exiled top aide to late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Berezovsky, one of Russia’s most powerful figures in the 1990s, fell out with President Vladimir Putin and fled to London in 2000, where he was later granted political asylum.
The 67-year-old tycoon was found dead in March 2013 with a scarf tied around his neck in the bathroom of a luxury mansion near London. His family feared he might have been murdered by enemies in Russia but British police and forensic experts concluded that Berezovksy had committed suicide.
(Reporting by Anna Koper; Editing by Gareth Jones)
