U.K. Court Hears Abramovich Libel Claim Over Putin Book
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich rejects "lazy inaccuracies" in a book that claims he took over Chelsea Football Club at the Kremlin's behest, his lawyer said Wednesday at the start of a U.K. libel trial.
The billionaire is suing Reuters journalist Catherine Belton
and publisher HarperCollins over their 2020 book "Putin's People: How The
KGB Took Back Russia And Then Took On The West".
The best-selling book alleges that President Vladimir Putin
has overseen a vast exodus of ill-gotten money to spread Russian influence
abroad, including the purchase of Chelsea by Abramovich in 2003.
The two-day hearing in London groups claims for libel
brought against Belton and HarperCollins by Russian state-owned energy giant
Rosneft, and against HarperCollins by Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman.
Pyotr Aven, the head of Russian lender Alfa-Bank, has also
brought a data protection claim against the publisher.
Lawyer Hugh Tomlinson is representing Abramovich, Fridman
and Aven, but denied pre-trial coordination among the wealthy Russians.
Abramovich did "not bring this claim lightly" but
the book "unfortunately repeats lazy inaccuracies about his role in the
events described", Tomlinson told the hearing, at the High Court of
England and Wales in central London.
'Villainy'
He described the book as alleging that Abramovich was
"cashier" to the family of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin in
the 1990s, and then "a custodian of slush funds" to Yeltsin's
successor Putin.
"The ordinary reasonable reader thinks there is a lot
of villainy going on and Mr Abramovich is part of it," the barrister said.
Abramovich in a rare personal statement released by his
lawyers in March said that his action was taken over "various false
allegations about me in the book".
These "are having a damaging effect, not only on my
personal reputation, but also in respect of the activities of Chelsea Football
Club", he said.
The court was due to hear later from lawyers for
HarperCollins and Belton, who was present at the start of the hearings.
When Abramovich brought his claim in March, the publisher
said both it and Belton would "robustly defend the claim and the right to
report on matters of considerable public interest".
HarperCollins said the book was "an authoritative,
important and conscientiously sourced work on contemporary Russia, that was
much praised on publication by experts in the field".
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