The Wall Street Journal-20080214-Politics - Economics- Mogul-s Death Is Treated as Suspicious
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Politics & Economics: Mogul's Death Is Treated as Suspicious
Full Text (391 words)A WSJ News Roundup
A Georgian tycoon who said he was the target of an assassination plot by his government died of an apparent heart attack at his mansion near London. Police said they were treating the death as suspicious.
In Georgia, Badri Patarkatsishvili's spokesman said the wealthy 52- year-old businessman was believed to have died of heart failure. Opposition leader Giorgy Khaindrava, though, said "nothing can be ruled out" until after the cause of death is confirmed.
Mr. Patarkatsishvili and the Imedi television station he co-owns in Georgia with News Corp. played a key role in supporting street protests against the ex-Soviet nation's government in November. (News Corp. also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.) Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili put down the protests using tear gas and rubber bullets. Amid an international outcry, he resigned soon afterward to call early elections.
In December, Mr. Patarkatsishvili produced a tape recording of what he said was a Georgian Interior Ministry official asking a Chechen warlord to murder him while he was in London. It wasn't possible to verify his claim.
Surrey Police said they were called Tuesday night to Mr. Patarkatsishvili's house in Leatherhead, 20 miles south of London. "As with all unexpected deaths it is being treated as suspicious," a police spokeswoman said.
Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, a longtime business associate of Mr. Patarkatsishvili who also lives in London, said Mr. Patarkatsishvili hadn't been ill but had complained about his heart when they met Tuesday.
The Georgian tycoon, who made his fortune in Russia but was later forced into exile, ran for election in the snap presidential poll early last month. He placed third with 7% of the vote. Mr. Saakashvili won with 53%. Opposition groups have alleged the vote was rigged, although international observers said it was largely free and fair.
Mr. Patarkatsishvili briefly pulled out of the campaign in December, after the Georgian government circulated a videotape of the businessman in which he discussed with a senior Georgian police official a plan to remove and possibly kill the country's interior minister during planned street protests that would follow the presidential elections in January.
Mr. Patarkatsishvili denied accusations that he tried to overthrow the government, but he acknowledged offering the official $100 million to side with the opposition. He didn't contest the tape's authenticity.
