Russians order seizure of mansion

A RUSSIAN court has ordered the seizure of Park Place in Remenham.

Moscow’s Tverskoi district court ruled on Wednesday last week that the 300-year-old mansion should be seized as indemnity for hundreds of millions of pounds it says the owner Andrei Borodin stole from the bank he once owned.

Mr Borodin amassed billions as the chief executive and co-owner of Bank of Moscow but fled Russia in 2011 after being accused of fraud.

He bought Park Place for £140million, making it Britain’s most expensive house, and was granted political asylum in 2013.

Mr Borodin says he was targeted for a politically motivated prosecution by Dmitry Medvedev, the former president who is now Russia’s prime minister.



He was close to Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow who was ousted six years ago, and to the politician’s wife, Yelena Baturina, a billionaire property magnate.

Mr Borodin was accused of enabling a loan of £270million from his bank, which was then partly controlled by the Moscow city government, to a company that used the money to buy land from Ms Baturina at an inflated price.

Mr Luzhkov was ousted as mayor after a public clash with Mr Medevdev in 2010 and Mr Borodin has claimed he was targeted because the Kremlin feared the bank might help Mr Luzhkov restart his political career.