UK: Abramovich's lawyer denies billionaire bought Chelsea FC on Putin's orders

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Lawyers representing three Russian billionaires and Russian oil firm Rosneft took to London’s Royal Courts of Justice on Wednesday as they launched legal proceedings against author Catherine Belton and publisher HarperCollins.

Prosecuting lawyers argued Belton’s 2020 book published by HarperCollins, ‘Putin’s People: How The KGB Took Back Russia And Then Took On The West’, was defamatory.

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich’s lawyer Hugh Tomlinson QC said his client had been inaccurately portrayed as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘cashier,’ holding ‘Kremlin slush funds,’ and able to access Putin’s ‘inner circle.’

The first day of the trial saw the prosecution laying out evidence from passages in the 600 page book, arguing that some of the book’s key sources were ‘unreliable’ and its assertions were therefore defamatory.

Accusations in the book include Abramovich purchasing London-based football club Chelsea on the direct orders of Putin as part of a ‘scheme to corrupt the West,’ which Tomlinson denied.

The two other Russian billionaires in question, Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven, reached an agreement with HarperCollins throughout the course of the day.

Tomlinson, who was representing all three men separately, told the High Court ‘an accommodation’ had been reached and that HarperCollins would apologise over certain aspects of ‘Putin’s People.’

#Russia #Putin #Abramovich #Fridman #Aven #London #CatherineBelton

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